Swimming With the Stars (WINCEST)
by Lixnchains
Summary: Sam may be harboring some "more-than-brotherly" feelings for Dean, which Dean discovers while secretly attending a poetry awards ceremony honoring one of Sam's works. What follows is a week of denial, curiosity, and sexual tension building up to Dean's acceptance of the fact that the feelings are very VERY mutual.
1. Chapter 1

"I'll be back in a week," John said gruffly, throwing some clothes and supplies unceremoniously into a black duffel. "Heading out to Flagstaff to hunt down a few leads. You make sure Sam gets to school, alright? Some food in the fridge. You can order."

Dean stood in the frame of the open door leading into the living room with a newly-opened bottle of beer in his hand.

He hesitated for a moment.

"What are you after? You sure you don't need an extra set of hands?"

John grunted, digging around in a drawer for a minute before pulling out some crumpled-up newspaper clippings from the very bottom and shoving them into his pocket.

"Bobby's in the area. He'll be meeting up with me in two or three days after he helps finish off a nasty vamp nest a few miles out from Boulder. A couple of young go-getter-type hunters got in over their heads. Lucky for them, Bobby was hunkered down right across the border in Santa Fe collecting supplies."

Dean shrugged.

"Sure, of course," he said, shifting his weight a little nervously, "But, you know, if you can stick around for a few more hours, Sammy is getting that award today at 2:30. The one for his English class. It's a poetry thing, or something about writing. You remember I was thinking it would be nice if we showed up and surprised him? He's been pretty down lately, and I thought he might appreciate the support."

John's posture stiffened a little, but he continued to pack, making a small noncommittal noise that Dean knew from experience translated to, "not gonna happen."

"But, it's no big deal," Dean continued quickly, wanting to avoid the awkward moment. "Now that I think about it, we'd probably just embarrass him. You know how the kid is."

John nodded, finally turning to face his oldest son.

"Right," he said with a strained smile. "I just want to get in as much driving as I can before dark. You tell him I say congratulations."

John paused for a moment, bending to grab a stray sock on the floor.

"And I'd like to see that focus of his put to good use. Maybe a little less time with a pen and a little more time in target practice. You tell him that, alright?"

"Yes, Sir," Dean lied, taking a swig from the bottle in his hand.

Well, the first part of the message would be delivered, but the last thing Sammy needed right now was another lecture, even though Dean happened to agree with their father on this particular point.

Sam had always been a pretty moody kid, but lately, he had been taking the whole teen angst thing to a whole new level. He seemed to always want to be alone, locking himself in his room for hours on end and taking long, mysterious walks in the woods at least a few times a day.

Whenever Dean so much as put a hand on his shoulder, Sam would start violently as if he'd been electrocuted.

Dean suspected that his little brother might have a girl in his life, or a girl that he _wanted _in his life, and he probably felt like he had no one to confide in about it. It would be a cold day in hell before he would admit it to Dean or their father, but there was no mistaking that nervous, jumpy, moon-eyed look that he was catching more and more often on Sam's face.

"_I should probably have the how-to-handle-girls talk with him," _Dean thought half-heartedly, not looking forward to the prospect of it at all.

It wasn't that he didn't want his little brother to have something like that. I mean, the kid was sixteen years old for god's sake, but the thought of it made him feel a little sick to his stomach for some reason, like he had come down with a sudden, intense bout of food poisoning.

"_Sammy doesn't know the first thing about dating," _he told himself. _"I don't want him getting wrapped around some girl's finger and strung along like a poor, lovesick puppy."_

"You look like your brother when he's got his head stuck in the clouds," John said suddenly, interrupting Dean's train of thought. "You with me?"

Dean snapped his gaze down from where he had apparently been staring up at the ceiling and cleared his throat again.

"Yes, Sir," he responded hastily, horrified that for some strange reason his cheeks were burning with a rush of blood. "I was just looking at-…I thought I might…put a fresh coat of paint up there while you're gone. You know, cover up some of that water damage…"

He trailed off, and John cast him an odd look.

"Dean, we're renting here," he said with a sigh like Dean was always suggesting stupid things like that. "We won't even be here past next month. Why don't you take on a useful project like reorganizing all of the maps and notes that Sam threw into the hall closet when he needed new school folders?"

He was pinning Dean with a scrutinizing squint, but after glancing down at his watch, he waved his hand dismissively.

"Either way, I'm hitting the road. You know how to reach me. Don't burn the place down. Alright?"

"Yes, Sir," Dean repeated, attempting a casual lean against the wall. "I'll take care of things. Good luck on the hunt. Oh, and tell Bobby he still owes me $50 dollars from that poker game in Burlington."

"Mm," John replied, already half-way out the back door. "Will do. See you in a week, give or take."

And with that, he closed the door with a little click.

Dean's shoulders relaxed from their tense hunch, and he walked over to sit on the end of the bed, wondering if he should go alone to Sam's event in a few hours. It would mean a long walk, but he could use the fresh air.

_Someone _should be there.

Sam hadn't even told them that he was getting the award. Dean didn't blame him. He had seen the slip of paper wedged into one of Sam's notebooks that had been left open on the kitchen table and had felt an odd rush of pride that his little brother was being recognized for something so…normal.

Okay, so he didn't necessarily see the point in any of it, but he knew how much this kind of thing mattered to Sam, and he was proud nevertheless.

Deciding definitively that he would be there for his brother's big moment, he hopped up and headed toward the bathroom to begin the process of making himself look presentable for the afternoon ahead.

Three hours later:

Dean felt tangibly uncomfortable in the crowd of students, parents, and teachers who were gathered in the auditorium of Sam's high school, and he shoved his hands roughly into his pockets, second-guessing his decision to come at all.

He felt like everyone was staring at him and wondering what he was doing there, like they all somehow knew he was an uneducated delinquent who wouldn't know a good piece of writing if it bit him in the ass.

That wasn't entirely true, and he forced himself to relax a little and stop being so paranoid.

"_This is about Sam, not you," _he reminded himself as the first student was called to the stage.

Her name was Emily something, and she recited what seemed like an awfully long poem about a fall leaf that Dean personally thought was contrived and cliché.

_See? Not entirely clueless._

Next up was a panicked-looking boy who choked out a poem about the death of his grandmother.

Dean listened and nodded and made little sounds of approval like everyone else.

It was an okay piece of work.

Nothing to write home about.

When the lady called Sam's name, he straightened up in his chair, peering over the heads of the couple in front of him to watch his brother take his place at the microphone.

Sam looked cool and confident up there staring down at them, and Dean was relieved that he hadn't been noticed sitting there in the middle of the crowd. He didn't want Sam to lose his focus on the task at hand.

But, my god, when had Sam gotten _that _tall?

Dean found himself staring at his little brother in an entirely new light as Sam introduced himself with a heart-stopping smile and what must have been a joke that Dean had missed because he had busy thinking to himself that there was really _nothing _little about Sam anymore…

Chuckling appreciably with the rest of the crowd at whatever he hadn't heard Sam say, Dean's chest felt a little tight.

Sam looked…well, he looked more in his element than Dean could ever remember seeing him, and it was a heady, disorienting experience to witness it, almost like he was spying on some secret part of his brother that he wasn't supposed to see.

Sam started to speak again, and Dean pushed the thought from his mind, now more curious than ever to hear this award-worthy thing that Sam had created.

"This poem is called, 'Swimming With The Stars,'" Sam spoke, his voice projecting steadily out into the audience. "It's actually, well, it's lyrics, so…I don't have my guitar, but I'm going to sing it for you all if you can bear with me."

Another one of those dazzling smiles…

_Wait, what guitar?_

But Dean barely had time to register the thought before Sam began, and then…everything else just…faded away…

"_You grab a towel, and I'll turn out the light._

_We're headed down the ramp now,_

_Disappearing in the night…_

_Into a darkness_

_Softened by the fog. _

_We make a pile of our clothes down on _

_The corner of the dock,_

_Holding hands as we stand ready_

_To embrace the coming shock,_

_And then in a moment,_

_We just fall into the sea._

_The first breath is desperate._

_The second one's a gasp._

_The third one's coming easy, now,_

_And it's followed by a laugh. _

_After, echoes the moon._

_And I am, for the moment, unconcerned with where we're going,_

_Where we've been._

_I only wish that we were orphans,_

_So the sea would take us in._

_We could travel into darkness,_

_Knowing nothing of goodbye,_

_Going easily unnoticed…_

_To slip out, ever softly,_

_With the tide._

_As you dive beneath the waves,_

_I can finally taste the truth,_

_And may the world fade out around us, now,_

_Because all I need is you…_

_All of your edges,_

_Reaching out and reaching in._

_But the moment flies unchecked again,_

_Ever-distant, ever-sought,_

_Leaving nothing but the dream to touch_

_And the skin that I cannot._

_I want your center,_

_But I will settle for your shade. _

_I am, to the bone, awake with this want that burns within,_

_But you say, "Man, it's getting late. I think we'd better head on in."_

_But there is a deepness_

_Making questions of your words…_

_Too brief to translate,_

_Going quickly and unheard_

_And I'm feeling kind of tired, and it's getting kind of cold,_

_But I'm scared that if I fall asleep,_

_I'll wake up when I'm old,_

_With nothing to wager, and nothing left to lose._

_And you'll never know I'd gamble __**everything**_

_For you._

_You grab the towel, and I'll turn on the light._

_There are things to say and to leave unsaid_

_In these shadows here, tonight._

_But, like the tide, you're drifting quickly_

_From my shore._

_I want to fill your spaces_

_Like a God without regret…_

_To understand you from the inside,_

_Rip you open,_

_Make you sweat._

_I want you to know me like you never have before._

_The future's full of shadows, and the past is full of pain,_

_And I believe that you could love me_

_If you could just forget my name._

_If we could only just be mysteries,_

_Not wrapped up in who we are…_

_Exposing naked glimpses of ourselves_

_When we're swimming with the stars._

_When we're swimming…_

_With the stars…_

It took Dean what was probably only a few seconds (but felt like a small eternity) to come back to reality enough to realize that the song was over.

He wasn't the only one who had fallen into a kind of awed and otherworldly trance.

The entire auditorium, in fact, had slipped into a hush that was only broken when Sam took a step forward and curled his torso into a subtle bow that somehow came off as unfathomably-endearing instead of arrogant.

It could have been the lopsided grin he broke out in while straightening up that helped, but in any case, the room suddenly erupted in an overwhelming onslaught of cheers and applause unlike anything Dean had ever heard.

And it was all for Sammy.

Little…_not little_…Sammy.

Sammy, whose voice was nothing less than angelic _(had it always been?)_ and whose words were filled with a raw passion to rival the Greats.

Sammy, who-

Dean very abruptly felt like someone had kicked him in the throat, hard, and he struggled to suck in a mouthful of air.

Sammy, who had just been singing about…well, who had been singing about…

_Sneaking down onto old Mr. Grady's dock after he was asleep…_

_Laughing and breathing in the salty air and forgetting about Dad and monsters and the thing that killed Mom, for a little while at least…_

_Holding hands while they jumped as a sort of insurance policy to make sure one of them didn't chicken out at the last second…_

_Swimming under the stars…_

That was…_their _thing.

That was _Sammy's and his_ _thing._

It was…_their _place.

Not even Dad knew about it.

But he couldn't have meant…he couldn't have been talking about…

A hot rush of anger suddenly flooded Dean's gut.

Had Sam been taking someone else to _their _place? Some _girl _from school, maybe? To do…_their _thing?

He gritted his teeth as his hands tightened into fists by his sides, overwhelmed again by that same nauseous ache that had come over him earlier in the day.

But, no. That didn't make sense.

Sam didn't go out at night. Not without Dean. Not _ever. _Dean was sure of it. 

But then that meant…what?

That Sam was…

Dean's nausea was rapidly increasing, now coupled with a kind of roaring sensation in his head.

Tripping over the legs of several disgruntled parents, he untangled himself from the crowd at near warp speed, backing out of the auditorium with his eyes glued on Sammy, who had dismounted the stage _(when had that happened?) _but was surrounded by a throng of congradulaters who were thankfully forming a human wall between them.

"_You're being paranoid again," _he tried to tell himself firmly, but his mind was spinning.

Sprinting out of the school parking lot, he replayed some of the choice phrases from Sam's song in his head.

There was a logical, uncomplicated explanation, here. He just knew it. He had to be reading into the whole thing, which caused him to feel sick again as he wondered if he was seeing something abnormal where there really wasn't…and what that said about _him._

Creative license. Storytelling. Metaphors.

"_Now you're just throwing out random literally terms_," he panicked, feeling close to hysterics. _"Put a lid on it, come on now."_

But the 45 minute walk back to their cabin had never seemed shorter, and Dean irrationally debated on just continuing down the dirt road indefinitely to avoid having to ever face his little brother again.

Aborting the thought almost immediately, however, he forced himself through the front door, making a beeline straight for the bathroom, where he violently threw up the contents of his stomach for several long minutes.

Afterward, he felt a little better.

Exhausted, but renewed by a powerful determination to put the afternoon behind him forever, he flung himself down onto the couch and fell into a restless sleep.

He was awoken by the sound of the door slamming, and he jolted to a sitting position as if he'd been doused with a bucket of cold water.

"Hey, I'm home," Sam called from the kitchen, and Dean could hear the thud of his backpack being thrown onto the floor.

For what seemed like a horrifying eternity, Dean couldn't respond, unable to do anything but gaze dumbly at the space in front of him while his heart pounded painfully in his chest.

Sam poked his head into the living room.

"Dean," he said, looking at his brother with a perturbed expression on his face, "What's up? You finally get that lobotomy I've been recommending?"

Dean stared for a moment before giving himself a hard mental slap.

_Say something. Anything.._.

"What? Did I what? No. No, I…"

_Fuck. What had Sam even asked him?_

"So…yes. You did, then," Sam said with a little frown, striding into the room and draping himself across one of the beaten-up armchairs. "Jesus. What's the matter with you? Did you and Dad have a fight? Where is he, anyway?"

Dean cleared his throat, forcing himself to calm down and regain at least a little of his composure.

"No, no, everything's fine. We didn't. We…everything's fine. He got a call and had to leave for a hunt out in Arizona a few hours ago. He'll be back in a week. Didn't tell me what it was all about. Seemed important, so…"

He trailed off.

"Okaaaaaaay…." Sam responded sarcastically, casting Dean a quizzical look. "Fine. Don't tell me what's wrong, then. Just thought I would ask."

He took a big bite of the apple he had apparently grabbed while in the kitchen.

"Did he leave any beer?"

Dean choked a little on a breath of air and narrowed his eyes at Sam, momentarily distracted by the unexpected question.

"What? Since when do you drink beer?"

Sam huffed in annoyance.

"I'm not a kid anymore," he said, crossing his arms over his chest and cocking his head in a way that made Dean's stomach suddenly feel very hot. "I've had beer before. I'm almost seventeen, you know. I've done a lot of things that you don't know about."

Dean felt his teeth clench and his pulse quicken.

"Yeah? Where was I?" he managed, quite suddenly feeling a little more angry than uncomfortable. "You didn't ask for a beer last month when Dad was in San Francisco for three days. And what kind of 'things' are we talking about, here, anyway?"

Sam rolled his eyes skyward.

"When Dad was in San Francisco, you spent the entire time out with _Lacey_ from the convenience store. I finished off Dad's six pack on the first night, and you were so drunk when you came in that the next day you thought _you _had drank them."

Dean's jaw dropped.

"What…you….Christ, Sam. What the hell?"

Sam shrugged casually.

"It's not a big deal," he said, stretching in his chair. "You're pretty oblivious, Dean, that's all. You still think I'm, like, eleven years old, and I'm not."

Dean gaped, completely thrown by the words that were coming out of Sam's mouth. It was like Invasion of the Body Snatchers but much more unsettling.

"Where is this coming from?" he spluttered. "You barely give me the time of day for a month, and now this? What…what the hell?"

Sam took another bite of his apple and chewed it before responding.

"Yeah, well, I've been busy. I've been working on a project…for school. It's kind of been…taking a lot out of me. Sorry about that. I didn't mean to make you feel like I was mad at you, or something."

Dean's heart suddenly plummeted and rose into his throat simultaneously.

_The project…for school…_

_God dammit, the "project" for school…_

"No, it's fine," he said gruffly, standing up from the couch and turning as if to look out the window. "I didn't mean it like that. I get that you've had…a lot on your plate. It's fine. Just…sure, you can have a beer. Go-go grab one. You can have a few. It's fine."

He shoved his hands into his pockets, feeling the heat of Sam's stare on the back of his neck.

"Yeah, okay," Sam said slowly, not moving from his chair. "Sounds good."

There was a little pause.

"Hey, Dean," he continued, his voice a little too calm to be believable, and Dean felt like throwing up again. "You want to…uh…go swimming in a bit? It's supposed to be a pretty warm night, and we won't have many more of them before the cold rolls in. I don't have any homework, so…do you want to? It'd be nice not to have to sneak out."

He was smiling when Dean turned back to face him, and Dean was not pleased by the fact that his own palms had broken out into a clammy sweat.

_No. Of course they weren't going to just "go swimming," not after everything, no fucking way. It just wasn't going to-_

"Sure, why not?" he heard himself speak, and his fists tightened in horror at the betrayal of his own damn words.

_That was NOT the plan. NOT the plan in any way, shape, or form._

But Sam was already leaping up like an over-rambunctious puppy and striding toward his room.

"Great!" he called over his shoulder, and Dean's stomach did an uncomfortable flip-flop. "I'm gonna go find my suit. I think Dad packed it away a few days ago with the rest of the summer stuff. You have yours?"

Dean pressed his hand to his forehead in defeat, overwhelmed by thoughts of "_No. Don't. Yes. C'mon. NO. NO. No to the thousandth power. No, no…."_

"Yeah. It's in my closet," his mouth said like it had taken on a mind of its own. "I'll, uh, grab it in a minute."

Panic was building up in his throat even as he tried to convince himself that everything was fine, normal, the same as it had always been.

But…had it _really _ever been?

He suddenly no longer knew.


	2. Chapter 2

The dark water was cool and sweet against Dean's skin as he waded in up to his waist, and he found himself using the cover of darkness to study the crisp angles of Sam's body as he stripped off layers of clothing on the dock about forty feet away.

Dean's fascination was entirely curiosity-based.

Sam was a new animal to him, an uncharted version of the awkward teenager he had known with such certainty just seven short hours before. Even without the implications of "the song," which Dean was trying not to consider, his younger brother was still suddenly an enigma vibrating with secret talents, confidence, and…more manhood than boyhood, which was possibly what was throwing Dean most of all.

Watching Sam as he pitched forward and back trying to pull a stubborn pant leg over his foot, there was somehow an inexplicable grace to his movements that Dean couldn't even begin to wrap his head around.

Sighing, he wondered nervously if he would ever be able to look at his little brother again without feeling dizzy…without feeling like gravity and all the laws of physics had been tossed to the wind.

"Not going to jump in tonight, huh?" Sam cooed mockingly, glancing over his shoulder to toss Dean a smug grin. "I guess becoming a wimp in your old age is something to be expected!"

Dean was startled out of his reverie, and he scoffed with a loud "psshhhh" before doing a little half-dive forward so that his head was the only part of him above the surface.

"You wish!" he called, willing his teeth not to start chattering as he splashed around a bit to confirm his machismo, which was still perfectly intact, thank you very much. "I'm pretty sure that _I'm _the one who's actually swimming over here while you're still prancing around in your underwear!"

_(Sam hadn't been able to find his bathing suit)_

Sam chuckled, waving his hand dismissively, and was in the water faster than Dean could come up with another retort.

Dean smiled and rubbed his hands together by his stomach, waiting for Sam to pop up nearby. The comfortable teasing exchanges had noticeably calmed his nerves, and he quickly decided that he would put all of this to rest for now and try to focus on the familiarity instead of the…everything else.

"I'm not falling for it!" he snapped playfully after a long minute, assuming that his brother was hiding behind the side of the dock waiting for Dean to venture close enough for one of Sam's giant splash-attacks. "Get over here, you idiot! The surprise factor kind of fizzles out after the fifth time, you know!"

No response.

"Don't think I won't throw your clothes in the water!"

Still nothing.

This was a little odd…

"_Dammit, Sam," _Dean thought in annoyance that was laced with a twinge of worry despite himself.

"Come on, man. This isn't funny!" he yelled, kicking off from the ground in the direction of the dock. "Cut the crap!"

He was met with the same deafening silence, and his breath hitched in alarm, panic rising in his throat like bile.

If Sam was nearby, he would have revealed himself by now, especially after hearing the worry in Dean's voice. It wasn't like him to hold off for this long.

_Shit. How long __**had **__it been?_

Dean's gut filled with icy dread as he practically jet-propelled himself toward the spot where his brother had dived in.

Had it been that damn board that jutted out from the dock's wooden underside? A rock? Fuck. He was almost there. He was almost-he was-

He was shoved sideways with a choked yell as a dripping wall of Sam emerged directly underneath him, sputtering and gasping and laughing wildly.

"My God! I couldn't have picked a better place to come up!" Sam exclaimed in between fits of what were almost giggles as he assaulted Dean with another round of splashes. "You should see your face!"

Dean was still a little stunned as he gaped at his brother, silently opening and closing his mouth for a few seconds like a fish out of water, but it didn't take long for his surprise and relief to be replaced by a rush of anger that reddened his cheeks despite the cold.

"Don't you ever fucking do that again!" he practically growled, remembering how to use his voice and yanking Sam close by a fistful of his hair until their faces were only inches apart. "You scared the shit out of me! How was I supposed to know that you're some kind of merman freak while you were under there apparently trying to break the damn holding-your-breath record? Jesus! I thought you were drowning!"

His chest was rising and falling rapidly, and Sam was staring at him with wide eyes and parted lips like _he _was the crazy one.

"Uh…Dean?" Sam said softly, annoyingly looking like he was trying to hold back a smile. "The world record for breath-holding is seventeen minutes and four seconds. I'm pretty sure that _two_ minutes isn't exactly a merman-ian feat."

Dean growled again, still gripping Sam's hair in a vice.

"Two minutes my ass!" he hissed, struggling to maintain his balance with only one hand pushing at the water. "I think I know two minutes."

Sam looked up through his wet lashes, not even trying anymore to conceal the smile that was creeping across his face.

"Okay, fine. You caught me," he murmured in a voice that sounded entirely too…something. "It was two minutes and three seconds. But, okay. If it makes you feel better, I promise to keep my underwater adventures to one minute or less. Deal?"

His legs and lower torso had drifted suddenly up against Dean's, and they both seemed to notice the closeness of their bodies at the same time, tensing their muscles simultaneously.

"Yeah. Fine," Dean coughed, jerking his hand away from Sam's hair like it had burned him and kicking backward a few feet. "That's…fine. I'm sorry. For freaking out, I mean. But your sense of time is completely warped, dude. You were definitely under there for more than two minutes."

His chest was vibrating strangely, and now that he thought about it, it probably _had _been pretty close to two minutes, but still. Sam should have known better than to have…acted like an idiot, or something.

Sam, who was using the back of his hand to wipe drizzles of water from his forehead, met Dean's eyes again with a subtle seriousness in gaze that he hadn't been there a moment before.

"It's okay. I get it," he said softly, almost delicately, shortening the area between them again to an uncomfortable three inches _(had this lack of physical space always been a thing for them? How had Dean not noticed it until now?)_ "I know you've had a stressful day."

_Oh, you don't know the half of it, buddy…_

"But," Sam continued hastily, "I wish you would talk to me more about that crap, you know? Instead of just taking it out on me? Like this afternoon. You _could _try confiding in me…or whatever. I guess it sounds kind of lame, but I'm a good listener, and obviously Dad would rather eat a bowl of spiders than do the whole 'sharing and caring' thing, so I'm really all you've got. Anyway, it's what brothers are supposed to do, right?"

Sam had barely taken a breath while saying all of this, probably because he didn't want to give Dean any chances to turn the whole thing into a joke, but the only thought in Dean's head at that very moment was,_ "What brothers are supposed to do, huh? Sam's clearly the expert in THAT department," _which was followed by what was now a very familiar flurry of nausea.

"And you don't think I would rather eat a bowl of live spiders than do the whole 'sharing and caring' thing with you?" he finally responded, cocking an eyebrow skeptically at Sam. "The way I see it, there's nothing a heart-to-heart can do for a guy that a good lay can't do better _(uh-oh. Clarify. Clarify)._ You should try it. I'm sure there are plenty of girls at your school who wouldn't say no to a little tumble in the leaves with you. You're a good-lookin' guy. Obviously, being my brother and all."

He knew how expertly he was pushing Sam's buttons, but now that the topic was out there, he was being egged on by another motivating factor as well…

"Okay, Dean. Very nice. I get it. Ever the emotionally-distant-"

"Or do you already have one stashed away somewhere, huh, Sammy? A little future-librarian girlfriend? Boyfriend, maybe? _(he was only half-teasing about that last part)_ Be honest! You know I can always tell when you're lying."

The question felt awkwardly out of place in the conversation, and Dean knew that Sam was probably wondering where it had come from, but he couldn't help it. Maybe it was the stripping cold of the water, his close proximity to Sam, or something else entirely, but he was quickly realizing that he _needed _to know if Sam's song might possibly have been about something…or someone else. Not thinking about it was NOT working, and he just…he needed to know.

Sam crinkled his nose and made a little displeased sound in the back of his throat.

"Deflection, much?" he groaned, rolling his eyes skyward. "No, Dean. If you _must _know, I don't have a secret girlfriend _or boyfriend_ stashed away in my closet, or anywhere, and don't start with me! It's not because I couldn't be getting laid if I wanted to, so don't tell me I have to stop acting like a nerd. Believe it or not, girls actually like that about me. I'm just not interested in…I just don't…you know what? We are not having this conversation! You always do this!"

Dean should have made an effort to react normally as Sam continued to sputter indignant retorts, but other more pressing matters were unfolding inside his head.

If he was being honest with himself, he felt something akin to relief at least about the fact that Sam hadn't fallen for some skanky local girl who would have undoubtedly trampled all over his heart, but this…well, _this, _he had never-

"Anybody home in there?" Sam asked, reaching out to tap his knuckles against Dean's head, and Dean cleared his throat awkwardly, trying to mash his thoughts back together.

"Ahhh…" he managed, staring stupidly in the direction of his brother while he tried desperately to remember the last thing he had heard Sam say.

_Dammit. Pull yourself together, man._

"What? No teasing me for being all hysterical, huh?" Sam quipped, surprisingly shooting Dean in the chest with one of his huge, lopsided smiles. "Wow. I guess you really _have_ had a stressful day. I think the words you might be searching for are, 'your tits should be coming in any day now,' or, 'that time of the month again, Samantha?' Am I close?"

_Not even a little._

Sam's annoyance had apparently been superficial enough to be replaced by humor, which Dean supposed was probably a good thing, and _Christ, _that smile…

"Nah," Dean scoffed, blinking rapidly as if that would somehow help him erase the images that were taking over his rational mind like cancer. "I was going to go with something about twisting your panties _(no, no, NO! No, no, no) _HAVING your, _getting _your panties in a…twist. Fucking hell." He palmed his forehead while Sam chuckled. "It's too cold for this shit. Are we going to go for a real swim anytime soon or are we going to float here and chat ourselves into hypothermia? Because I've got another good twenty minutes in me, and then I'm getting my ass back to the cabin and under a damn blanket."

Sam laughed and gave him a playful shove.

"Fine. I'll race you down over to the white dock. But, Dean-"

"Oh, shut it!" Dean grumbled, already pushing away to the left. "I'll talk to you more about…stuff, okay? Happy? But only if it's a two-way street!"

_Oops. Did he even want that? _

Sam grinned, catching up to Dean quickly and then easily kicking past him.

"Yeah, yeah. I'll believe it when I see it. Come on, old man! Is that the best you got?"

"Hey!" Dean huffed indignantly, reclaiming the lead again. "I'm just warming up! I've got moves you've never even dreamed of, _little_ brother!"

"I'd like to see those," Sam murmured, half to the water, and Dean's stomach did a small acrobatic routine.

_Was that…had that been…_

Fuck.


	3. Chapter 3

"You want a beer?" Sam called from the kitchen as Dean lazily flipped through the channels on the cabin's beaten-up TV. "Or something stronger, maybe?"

Dean's eyebrow quirked, and he glanced through the doorway to see Sam taking a swig from one of John's "hidden" flasks with one hand while he poured corn kernels into a pot on the stove with the other.

"Christ, Sammy," he groaned, letting himself fall against the back of the couch with a loud huff. "Dad will kill you if he finds out you've been drinking his whiskey, and, more importantly, he'll kill _me _for letting you."

Sam just chuckled, taking another long sip.

"You're whipped, you know that?" he said, and Dean sighed, palming his forehead.

"No, I'm _reasonable,_" he muttered. "You're just insane."

Truthfully, now that the idea was in his head, though, he really d_id _want some of that whiskey.

"Give me that," he snapped, holding his hand out and trying to put on his best stern adult face. "I'm sure as hell not letting you finish off the whole thing. I don't want to spend the rest of my night cleaning up your puke."

"Yeahhh, okay," Sam said with a grin, stepping into the living room to hand over the flask. "Half of that is mine, though, so don't even think about chugging it!"

Dean just rolled his eyes, taking a long, gratifying sip and leaning back against the couch again.

"So, which one is it gonna be tonight, Sammy? The Evil Dead? Poltergeist? Nightmare on Elm Street?"

It was a ritual of sorts for them. When Dad was gone, they'd pop some popcorn and watch an 80's horror movie each night before falling asleep.

John didn't really like it when he was home.

"_We see enough of this kind of stuff daily without having to watch it in a movie," _he'd say with a little click of disapproval, but Sam and Dean were young boys, and watching Freddy Krueger slash someone while stuffing salty snacks into their mouths was just…fun, hunters or not.

"You pick," Sam said nonchalantly, already in the kitchen again, and Dean felt a little twinge of nostalgia, remembering how excited Sam used to get about nights like these when he was younger.

As he watched his brother poke at the popcorn with a long wooden spoon, his thoughts drifted back to Sam's song…to everything that had happened.

Maybe it was the little bit of whiskey he had in his system or the fact that he had used up all of the stress his brain could manufacture in a day, but he didn't feel all that upset about the fact that these thoughts were in his head yet again.

Or at least, he didn't feel nauseated by them.

In fact, he found himself just casually wondering if his assumptions really _had _somehow been wrong.

Sam certainly wasn't acting like he was…like he was "enamored" with Dean.

If anything, he seemed a little bored.

Mentally running through what he could remember of Sam's lyrics, Dean's brow furrowed. It just seemed so…like them, but surely he would have picked up on something coming from Sam now that he knew to look for it.

There had been the thing with their legs when they were swimming, but that had really been _him, _hadn't it?

Had it?

And Sam had said some things…but Dean hadn't exactly been in the right mental place for clarity. Now that he really thought about it, he could have easily exaggerated them in his mind.

And Sam _would _have lied to Dean if he had a girlfriend. Of course he would have. He wouldn't want Dean to know something like that.

Dean was quickly realizing that for the first time since all of this had happened, he was actually finding it believable that everything he had been panicking about could really be just a big, big misunderstanding on his part.

It should have felt like a relief, finally allowing himself some room to doubt the disturbing conclusion he had come to about Sam's interest in him, but it didn't feel…quite like that.

Why didn't it feel like that?

Why did it feel like, well…like something _else_?

That's when the nausea came.

"_Jesus fuck, dude," _he silently berated himself, his heart beat speeding up. _"Stop that. Stop that right now." _

It was no secret to him or to anyone else that he was a bit possessive when it came to Sam, but to wish…even for just a second…that his baby brother was in love with him just because that would mean that he wasn't in love with someone else was twisted on so many different levels.

Was that even what he had wished, though? And if it was, was that _why _he had wished-

"Dean," Sam said, his voice close, and Dean snapped out of his downwardly-spiraling train of thought to see Sam leaning up against the wall just five feet away, a bowl of popcorn in his hands and an expression of concern on his face. "Dude, you keep telling me that everything's fine, but I'm losing track of how many times I've caught you doing this today. I mean, man, you look like you just saw a pile of dead puppies or something. I get that you don't want to tell me, but you're freaking me out a little. Nothing's…really wrong is it? Like…Dad, or something? Because if it is, you _have _to tell me."

"No. No, no," Dean sputtered quickly, smoothing his hair and plastering a smile onto his face. "I'm sorry, man. I know I've been acting weird. It's not…it's-

_Sam wasn't going to let this go._

It's…I-I…girl trouble."

_Fuck. What? Why?_

Sam shifted his weight uncomfortably, his expression of worry melting visibly into one of annoyance.

"Oh," he said, pursing his lips. "Okay. So…okay. I didn't know you were seeing anyone."

Dean cleared his throat nervously, feeling like a complete idiot.

"Yeah, I…not really. Well, a bit. Just…you know."

Boy, that had really cleared everything up.

"Whatever, man. It's fine," Sam said a little harshly, and Dean felt suddenly guilty, like he had said something offensive.

"No, I mean it's really nothing," he rushed, grabbing the flask from the table and avoiding his brother's eyes while he did exactly what Sam had told him not to do. "Look, you, uh…Dad's got another one of these in his closet. You go...grab that. Really, it's not a big deal. Let's just watch our movie, okay? It's nothing."

Sam's withering gaze was obvious, even before Dean glanced over at him.

"Well, it's obviously _something,_" Sam said in a strained voice, tossing the bowl of popcorn unceremoniously onto the couch. "But, whatever. I'll go get that. You can put the movie in."

He half-turned to walk away before adding, "Just…next time, how about you let me know when there's something _actually_ wrong and when you're just hung up on some girl, okay? I've been worried about you all day for nothing."

Blinking dumbly at his little brother, who rolled his eyes a little before stomping out with an audible huff, Dean inhaled deeply, giving his brain cells a chance to reassemble.

Wait a minute.

Sam wasn't mad. Well, not for the reason he had claimed, anyway.

It was suddenly so obvious.

Sam was jealous.

Sam was…_jealous._

Oh, God.

_A~A~A~A~A~A~A~A~A~A~A~A~A~A~A~A~A~A~_

"Okay, I don't get it," Sam slurred, half-rising from the couch before falling back down again, defeated by gravity.

"You've seen this movie like eight times, Sam," Dean said, not knowing whether to laugh or cry about how drunk his brother had gotten. "Which part do you not get?"

"Not that, jerk," Sam retorted, slinging an arm against the back of the couch to steady himself. "I don't get how you have a girlfriend that's serious enough for you to mope about for a day, and I don't know about her."

Dean's pulse quickened, but not as much as it would have if he didn't have a large flask of whiskey and four beers pumping through his blood.

"Oh, that," he coughed, brushing some invisible dirt off his knee. "I don't. I mean, I don't have a _girlfriend_. I said girl trouble, okay? That doesn't mean girlfriend."

"What, did you knock someone up?" Sam asked, his voice much higher than usual. "Oh my god, did you?"

"Christ, Sammy," Dean groaned, pressing a palm to his forehead. "No, I did not knock someone up. Jesus. Can you just…can we drop this? Let's just finish our movie and go to bed, okay? You need to sleep it off big time, man."

Sam's lips pressed into a pout, and he didn't respond for a minute, leaning back and taking a deep breath.

"Hey, Dean," he finally said, his eyes half-closed in the dim light of the room, "I think I'm drunk."

Dean raised his eyebrows, looking over at Sam, who was now keening dangerously toward him.

"Yeah, no kidding," he murmured, shaking his head a little. "I think you passed drunk about three beers ago, buddy. Why don't we just-"

"You know, I think I'll just take a little…nap," Sam interrupted, and before Dean could stop him, he was stretching out like a big cat, his legs hanging off the end of the couch and his head and shoulders falling heavily onto Dean's lap. "You just…you wake me up when the movie's…"

His voice trailed off, and Dean sat frozen in place, staring down at his brother in disbelief.

This was just great.

Sam was an immovable log when he wanted to be, or in this case, when he was unconscious, but Dean _had_ to try to squeeze out from under him. There wasn't enough alcohol in the world to make it okay that his brother's cheek was pressed right up against his…

He just couldn't stay there. Not with everything that Dean knew now.

"_C'mon, man," _he chided himself, feeling guilty. _"Let him sleep. He needs it." _

He did look peaceful, and if Dean could forget the fact that Sam was passed out drunk after a bout of poorly-concealed jealousy over Dean's fictional girlfriend with whom Sam possibly wished he could trade places with…well, this could almost be like when they were younger and Sam would fall asleep before the movie was even over.

Back then, though, he was little enough to be picked up and carried to his bed.

There was nothing little about Sam anymore.

Dean found himself smiling despite everything as he looked downed at Sam's face. From a purely aesthetic viewpoint, his little brother was beautiful. The way that the bluish light from the TV caught his features in the otherwise darkened room was perfect.

Without thinking, Dean's fingers found a lock of hair that had fallen across Sam's eyes and brushed it to the side.

He would never admit this to Sam in a million years, but he loved his brother's hair.

There was something almost regal about it, like Sam could be the young, charming prince on the cover of some romance novel, and despite his nearly constant teasing that he would have to buy Sam a bra and a dress soon if he didn't get a haircut, he had always secretly hoped that Sam wouldn't take his words to heart.

Following Sam's hair with his fingers down to just above the concave area between his neck and shoulder, Dean's hand suddenly itched with the desire to touch the skin there.

A couple of inches lay exposed above the hem of Sam's t-shirt, and it just looked so smooth, so flawless, so unlike any other skin he had ever had beneath his fingertips.

Sam was unconscious. Dean was just curious. What would be the harm in just-

His fingers moved of their own accord, slipping under the fabric and traveling in a feather-soft stripe down Sam's chest.

His breath caught in his throat as his thumb and forefinger came to rest about an inch above Sam's nipple.

He felt a sudden flurry of sensations deep in his stomach, and he could feel the color rising in his cheeks.

"Jesus, what are you doing?" he murmured to himself, but before he could pull his hand away, Sam's eyes fluttered open prettily, and Dean froze again like a deer in the headlights.

_Oh, God._

_Please go back to sleep. Please go back to sleep. Please don't notice. _

Sam shifted a little, causing Dean's fingers to slip even lower, and Dean couldn't breathe. He couldn't speak. He couldn't look away.

After what seemed like a small eternity, though, Sam's lids drooped, and in the next moment, his eyes were shut again and his chest was rising and falling with the slow, deep breaths of sleep.

Dean slowly removed his hand, stretching his arm out to the side as far away from his brother as he could manage without pulling a muscle, and what was left of the feelings in his stomach from just a minute ago now felt like he had just been punched…hard.

"_I'm never drinking again," _he thought angrily, forcing his eyes back to the movie. When it was over, he would wake Sam up. He would wake Sam up, and they would go to bed, and Sam wouldn't…he wouldn't remember.

And this would never…_never…_happen again.


	4. Chapter 4

Dean woke up the next morning to the smell of pancakes wafting into his room through the crack under his door and the sound of upbeat Jazz music coming from the stereo.

Pulling himself out of bed with a little groan, he threw on an old t-shirt from the floor and trudged toward the kitchen with his hands clutched melodramatically over his ears.

"Sammy!" he half-yelled, flinching in pain at the volume of his own voice, "Christ, have you ever heard of a hangover? Turn it down! Jesus."

Stepping into the kitchen, he spotted Sam by the stove whistling cheerfully with a spatula in his hand and…and no shirt…on…

Sam tossed him a smug look over his shoulder, and Dean's mouth suddenly felt as dry as sandpaper.

"Uhh," he said stupidly, palming the hem of his own t-shirt as if that would magically make one appear over his brother's tanned torso, "You, uh…you shouldn't cook like that, you know. You could burn yourself.

Well, that had been an idiotic thing to say.

Sam laughed cheerfully, flipping one of the pancakes before turning to face Dean.

"Yeah, I'll keep that in mind," he said sarcastically, rolling his eyes and cocking his head to the side while he gave Dean a long once-over. "You look like crap, dude."

Dean sat down gingerly in one of the small, wooden chairs with another groan and tried to glare at his little brother, but it ended up as more of a squint, and even that small movement of his brow caused another sharp burst of pain to flare up in his head.

"Very funny," he muttered darkly, reaching over to grab the bottle of aspirin from the center of the table. "We're not all teenagers who can drink themselves into oblivion and then not have to live with the consequences."

He paused for a minute, his stomach doing an uncomfortable flip-flop as the little "incident" that had happened last night blurred back into his mind like a dream.

Dammit.

Speaking of consequences…

"You…how are you feeling, anyway?" he continued, looking down at the bottle in his hand and pretending to struggle with the cap. "You got trashed, man. You probably don't even…remember much, do you?"

Please. Please.

Sam smiled, tossing the spatula onto the counter and crossing his arms over his chest.

"Not much," he said with a shrug, using his toe to nudge the edge of the round, black rug that concealed a large devil's trap John had painted onto the linoleum. "Yeah, I don't even remember moving from the couch to my bed. Good times, though, huh?"

Dean felt a rush of relief flood his gut.

"Mmm," he replied noncommittally, popping open the aspirin and grimacing as he dry-swallowed three of them.

God, since when were early mornings so unreasonably…bright?

He glanced down at his watch blearily and then straightened up entirely too quickly, his neck cracking uncomfortably.

They weren't.

It was 11:15.

"Hey, wait a minute!" he snapped, turning in his chair. "Do you even know what time it is? Aren't you supposed to be at school?"

Sam spun on his heels toward the stove, suddenly very focused on breakfast again.

"Well, kind of," he mumbled after a moment of silence, and Dean heaved a huge sigh.

"Oh, stop that," Sam quipped before Dean could scold him, crossing the room in a few strides to toss a paper plate of pancakes down onto the table. "My teachers all love me. Who cares if I play hooky this once? You're not going to tell Dad, right? So, no harm done. You want syrup?"

Dean stared up at Sam incredulously.

"No, I'm not going to tell Dad," he said with a frown, pulling the plate closer to him, "because he'd kick my ass. You'd get off scott-free, and you know it! I'm already going to have to tell him I drank half of his whiskey supply. I'm not going to add letting you skip school to the list."

He pinned Sam with what he hoped looked like a resolute expression.

"You're going tomorrow," he finished, and then, after a moment's pause, added, "and…yes, I want syrup."

Sam grinned, shaking his head as he pulled open the fridge door.

"Yes, Sir!" he said, raising his hand to his forehead in a mock salute. "Aye-aye, Captain! Roger that-"

"Don't push your luck, buddy," Dean interrupted, pursing his lips in Sam's direction. "I could still make you go in late today!"

"Oh, really?" Sam asked, grabbing the bottle of syrup and throwing himself down into the chair next to Dean. "You think you could, huh? And what would you do if I said no, hmm? Sling me over your shoulder and drag me there? I doubt it. You gonna ground me? Or spank me until I cave and promise to be the perfect little student?"

Dean choked on nothing, his face heating up alarmingly.

Now there was an…interesting picture.

No.

A bad picture. A bad, bad picture of…badness.

"You're lucky I don't," he muttered, and that was NOT what he had meant to say at all.

Sam gave him a playful little kick under the table.

"You'd have to catch me first," he teased, a smug little smirk pulling at the corners of his mouth. "Maybe I'll catch you before you could catch me, huh? See how you like it. I bet I could whip you right into shape. You know I could. Like you said, you're not a teenager anymore, Dean. I see golf and afternoon naps in your future. I could probably just pin you right down and-"

"Eat your damn pancakes," Dean ordered gruffly, trying to abort this rapidly-spiraling conversation in its tracks. He didn't think he had the mental capacity at that moment to handle hearing whatever Sam had been about to say.

"Mmhm, okay. You're the boss," Sam shot back, his voice cracking a little on the last word as he forced down a chuckle, and Dean raised an eyebrow at him.

"Christ. When did you turn into such a smart-mouth? Bitch."

Sam tugged the plate away from him with a little wink, grabbing his fork.

"Oh, I don't know. Probably around the time you turned into a grumpy old man. Jerk."

It was Dean's turn to chuckle, and he threw up his arms in defeat.

"Touché," he said, leaning back in his chair and watching his little brother towering over the table like a damn chiseled Olympian while attempting to shovel an entire pancake into his mouth.

God. There was really nothing…NOTHING little about Sam anymore.

Some stray syrup dripped off of Sam's fork, landing on his upper stomach, and as it made a beeline toward his bellybutton, Dean felt like his eyeballs were superglued to it. He followed its drizzle down Sam's skin until it hit the waist-line of his striped pajama pants, and even then…especially then…he just couldn't seem to tear his gaze away.

Not because of…well, not…it was just…

Suddenly realizing that Sam wasn't moving anymore, Dean forced himself to look up and was horrified to see Sam poised with his fork hovering about an inch from his mouth just watching him with a half-surprised, half-curious expression on his face.

When their eyes met, both brothers seemed to feel equally embarrassed by the awkward moment, but even though Sam did clear his throat and pretend to be fascinated by something outside the window behind Dean, he didn't crunch forward or try to hide himself from view like Dean thought he might.

In fact, he leaned back a little.

Was he overcompensating?

It's what Dean probably would have done if the situation had been reversed.

Knowing that trying to pretend he hadn't been looking might only make it seem like he had been looking in some kind of a…weird…way, which he HADN'T been, Dean attempted a casual stretch, licking his lips nervously despite himself.

"You've got a little…something," he mumbled, gesturing vaguely toward Sam and hating himself for apparently having no control over his actions whatsoever.

Sam looked down at his own stomach and grabbed a napkin, scooting his chair away from the table a bit.

"Oh," he said softly, the playful, teasing tone from just a minute ago completely gone from his voice. "I guess I do. I…didn't notice."

"Yeah, right," Dean thought, but as he glanced over, his breath caught heavily in his throat and his mind went temporarily blank.

Sam was slowly moving the napkin down his skin, down to his…he was…he pushed the napkin under the waist-line of his pants, his fingers dipping into a place that the syrup had definitely not been able to reach, and he stayed there. He stayed there for what seemed like a long, long time before sliding his hand up and out again, tossing the napkin next to his plate, and rising to his feet.

"I think I got it," he said quietly, and Dean just gaped, completely unable to make his mouth work.

"You mind if I take the first shower?" Sam continued quickly, almost as if he didn't want to draw too much attention to the fact that Dean was currently a useless, speechless idiot, and Dean forced a deep breath into his lungs.

He knew full-well how he was acting, but it was as if his higher brain functioning had been paralyzed, and he couldn't do a damn thing about it.

"Uhh," he finally managed to scrape out, sounding like he was recovering from a bad bout of laryngitis, "No. I mean sure. I mean, no. You can…go for it."

"Thanks," Sam said, turning to walk away. "I'll be out soon."

Dean just stared at his brother's retreating back, feeling like his head was full of thick fog, but as the seconds passed and his awareness began to trickle back, a crushing wave of icy panic washed over him, bringing with it an entirely new kind of dread.

He was hard.

He was fucking hard.

He wasn't just…hard. He was…he couldn't remember ever being this hard. Not ever.

Oh, God.

Why was he-

"No," he said out loud to the empty kitchen, standing up so quickly that he almost blacked out. "No."

He couldn't even think it. He couldn't.

This couldn't be happening.

He walked to the stove and then back to the table again several times, his heart hammering in his chest and his palms clammy with sweat.

No.

He suddenly felt irrationally full of rage and kicked out at the wall blindly, wincing as sharp pain shot up through his ankle.

"I have to get out of here," he thought, clenching his hands into tight fists by his sides. "I can't be here. I have to get out of here."

Not even pausing to come up with a plan, he almost fell over his own legs trying to get into the hallway to stumble clumsily into his sneakers.

He just had to go.

Not for good.

He knew that much, at least.

He wouldn't leave Sammy here alone with Dad gone, but he just…he needed to think. Or he needed to drink. Or he needed to…he just needed to not be around when Sam got out of the shower.

He couldn't.

Not even bothering to grab his coat or a real pair of pants, he slammed out the front door, his chest heaving.

Oblivious to the cold wind and running as fast as his legs could carry him, he headed for town.

He would tell Sammy he had gone to the store, or for a walk. He would come up with something. In that moment, he didn't even care.

He just knew that he had to get as far away from that cabin…as far away from Sammy…as he possibly could.


	5. Chapter 5

**-A-**

Dean got about ten minutes down the road before he realized the absurdity of what he was doing.

Planting his hands on his hips and bending himself forward at the waist, he struggled to catch his breath, his sweat-slick arms cooling to a chill in the early autumn air.

Christ.

What had he been thinking?

There were ways to fix this. There were at least ways to lock it away for good deep down in the depths of their minds…where it belonged.

Running away (in his pajamas, no less) and cementing the idea that there was something to run away FROM was not one of those ways.

He closed his eyes and waited for his heart to stop racing.

What he needed to do was to calm down and to just…logic himself through this. Away from Sammy's apparent mind-melting abilities, he felt at least slightly rational again.

"You are not attracted to your brother," he mumbled to himself as a sudden weariness settled in onto his chest like a ton of bricks. "That's sick. That's not what this is about. You just need…maybe you want…"

Dean had been with men before.

It was a load-bearing secret that he liked to pretend to keep even from himself when it was at all possible, but sometimes he needed it.

Sighing heavily, he toed a crumbling spot of asphalt with his sneaker.

It wasn't going to be that easy. Even if finding a young, muscled guy to take into an alley and fuck in a way that he just couldn't fuck girls solved his end of this predicament, half of the problem would still remain.

Sam.

Sammy, who had…rather blatantly just attempted to seduce him via breakfast condiments and who now possibly thought that this…thing…this unnatural thing…wasn't as one-sided as he might have previously believed.

God dammit.

Leave it to the Winchesters to take "family problems" into whole new levels of fucked up.

You know what? He would deal with that later.

The most pressing matter at hand was getting back (hopefully before Sam noticed he had gone) and making sure…making absolutely sure…that any "conclusion" his brother might have wrongly come to was left behind in the dust.

And, as for everything else, well, he would figure that out later.

He could do this. He could.

He could make himself believe that everything was going to be okay.

He had to.

**-B-**

When he stepped back into the cabin about ten minutes later, out of breath again from running, his stomach fell a little to see Sam already dressed (with one of his skin-covering flannel button-ups on this time, thank goodness) and draped lazily across the couch.

He lay on his side just watching Dean curiously while he traced an idle pattern on the soft fabric of his shirt near the hem.

Oh, great.

Dean cleared his throat uncomfortably.

He couldn't have had the foresight to plan something to say in case Sam had been out of the shower when he got back?

Go figure.

"I was, uh, just making a phone call," he mumbled, avoiding his brother's gaze and awkwardly trying to shove his hands into his hip pockets before he remembered that pajama pants don't have pockets.

There was a moment of silence from Sam's end of the room.

"Were you being chased by a bear while you were on the phone?" he finally asked, his tone of voice somewhere between playful and defensive.

Sam had noticed Dean's slight breathlessness from all the way across the room despite Dean's Herculean efforts to conceal it.

Of course he had.

Nothing got past Sammy.

Despite his young age, he was quickly gaining a reputation as the up-and-coming Sherlock of the hunter community.

It was annoying at the best of times.

"I just thought a little jog back would be good for me," Dean lied, unable to come up with anything better on the spot. "It gets the blood flowing, you know."

"Yeah, I do know," Sam said quietly, "Because I actually jog to be healthy, not just when I'm…"

He trailed off, and Dean felt the tips of his ears getting hot.

"You know what, Sammy?" he snapped before Sam could finish his thought, "Can you just…enough with the third degree, alright? I'm too tired for this shit."

He pressed his palm to his forehead as if he could iron away the headache that was now back full-force.

Sam didn't respond, and after several long moments, Dean caved, turning to face his brother.

Sam locked eyes with him intensely before shifting his gaze to the small, wooden table beside the couch where Dean's cellphone lay untouched and unmoved from the night before.

Fuck.

Dean could actually feel the molecules in the room begin to shift, and he bridled, suddenly feeling more angry than anything else.

"You know what?" he almost growled, hating his brother a little for putting them in this situation in the first place, "What do you want me to say?"

Sam slowly pulled himself to a sitting position, folding his hands in his lap and staring Dean down like he could see into the depths of Dean's head if he just looked hard enough.

"I want you to say…whatever you want to say," he murmured, something maybe akin to disappointment dripping off of each word like running watercolors.

Dean felt a dull ache pull at his heart.

"Fine, Sammy," he sighed in a softer voice, crossing his arms protectively over his chest and coming to a snap decision. "Whatever I want to say? That's easy. What I want to say is that I was making a phone call. That's all I was…that's all we need to say I was doing. Okay? Look, I'm not an idiot. I know what you're wondering about, and I'm not…I…I would never…just…do you, uh, understand what I'm trying to say?"

He paused for the briefest of moments before continuing.

"I'm gonna…I'll be in my room."

He hadn't wanted to wait for the response that would undoubtedly only make everything even harder than it already was, and as he turned and walked away, he forced himself to act as casual and distant as he knew he needed to act in order for Sam to understand that this was over.

What Sam wanted would never…never happen.

It was done.

**-C-**

Back in bed, Dean's mind was spinning.

He felt shell-shocked and out of focus, almost like he was underwater, holding his breath, while everything around him swayed blurrily.

His skin felt itchy and too-warm, and he sighed in frustration, willing himself to stop picturing Sam's big, reproachful eyes staring him down like lighthouse beacons…finding him wherever he tried to run to in the dark corners of his mind.

And then there was the other image, the one that had been plaguing him since he had bolted after breakfast...

The one of Sam leaning back in his chair at the kitchen table, shirtless and smoky, with his fingers trailing down to his-

Dean coughed and pulled himself up onto his elbows, actually shaking his head as if that might send his own thoughts rattling back down into the safety of his subconscious.

It didn't.

Why?

Why couldn't he let this go?

He had finished things.

He had told Sam just enough (albeit a little awkwardly), without saying too much, to feel moderately confident about the fact that his brother surely understood where Dean stood on this issue. The uncharted waters they had mistakenly found themselves dipping their toes into earlier would stay exactly the way they were: uncharted, unexplored, just…something to be stomped out like a stray ember and hopefully forgotten about by both of them over time.

Sam was young, after all.

Dean remembered what it had been like as a teenager dealing with rampant, unpredictable hormones that seemed to flare up out of nowhere and at very inconvenient times, turning ordinary situations into uncomfortable ones.

Okay, so the discomfort level had never quite reached incest territory for Dean, but he had certainly done and thought about doing some things that he would sooner have carved out of his brain with a rusty fork than be publicized for everyone to know about.

Everyone has their…weird…things, right?

Sam would meet a pretty little girl someday, or…hey, maybe even a boy, and Dean would put his possessive, controlling attitude to bed and be happy for his brother, god dammit…even if he had to fake it for a while.

It was fine.

This was…fine.

He was only dwelling on everything because of what a shock it had been to his psyche.

He had seen his little brother in a way that he never should have seen him, and he had been…well, this dry spell lately was just causing him to react in alarming ways to…inappropriate things. That was all.

His mind wasn't playing the little incident on repeat because he liked it or something.

"People have war flashbacks all the time, right?" he thought, realizing that he was definitely grasping at straws but still forcing himself to take a deep breath before falling back against his pillow again with a loud huff.

But, there was the image again…

Sam's bare skin touched all golden by the morning light, the tip of his tongue darting out to wet his lips as he ran the napkin so slowly down his stomach, the way that Dean's dick had turned into a phallic steel rod under his pajama pants, the way-

The way it was…hard again, now…

Oh no.

No, no, no.

Christ.

Dean felt simultaneously frustrated and ridiculous.

It was like his once-steel resolve had weakened to the consistency of a wet napkin.

Apparently, he couldn't go one minute without barreling through the red tape he kept putting up in his mind like a horny bull on steroids.

Squinting his eyes shut, he snaked his hand under the sheet to try to relieve some of the rapidly-building pressure.

He lips parted slightly as he gripped himself through the thin fabric.

God, it had been too long.

Before he could form much of a rational thought, his fingers seemed to move of their own accord, slipping beneath his waist-line and down to the base of his cock…flesh seeking flesh.

He actually arched up off the bed a little in a way that he suspected might have been distinctly girly at the contact he had been denying himself, but it was just another reason to be thankful for the fact that walls can't speak, and he was already too far gone to really think much of it.

Conjuring up an image in his head of a guy as physically different from his brother as it was possible to be, Dean imagined fucking him from behind up against a wall outside of some fantasy dive bar…just crowding him into the cold brick and whispering in his ear that he was going to take what he was given like a good little boy, that he was going to love it, that he was going to beg to cum before the end, and maybe…just maybe…Dean would allow it.

A low growl escaped Dean's throat, and he started to pump his fist in earnest, a thin sheen of sweat now coating his brow.

This wasn't going to take long at all, and he would feel much, much better afterward.

The fantasy was taking on a life of its own, and Dean watched it unfold almost like a movie behind his eyelids…a movie over which he ruled supreme, of course.

He was fucking faceless fantasy boy ruthlessly now, trapping his hands against the wall and biting into the soft skin of his shoulder blade while he snapped his hips forward again and again, that tight, tanned ass speared hotly on his cock.

This was how he usually liked it with other men…rough, dirty, brutal even…muscles against muscles, the kind of sexual satisfaction that he could never really get from girls.

God, he was so close.

Using his thumb to swipe the sensitive ridge that always made his breath stutter and his toes curl, he felt a rush of heat begin to coil in his lower abdomen, and he dug his heels down hard into the mattress.

In the fantasy, he had reached around to grab the boy's cock, velvety and wet with precome, and his fantasy-self hissed, "I want you to yell my name when you cum, do you hear me? I want everyone around here to know who you belong to."

Suddenly, fantasy boy looked over his shoulder at Dean, his pupils blown and his expression dripping with dirty desire, and Dean's heart nearly exploded in his chest as he came harder than he had ever come before, nearly levitating off the bed from the force of it and whiting out for a second before crashing back down again into himself…the LAST place he wanted to be at the moment.

It had been Sam.

When fantasy boy had turned to face him…it had been Sam.

Dean scrambled to his feet and barely made it to the trashcan before throwing up violently, his stomach muscles clenching and unclenching painfully as they ejected everything they could out of Dean's throat and into the small, plastic bin.

And then, as if the powers-that-be had all come together to make sure that Dean was as miserable and panicked as possible, a loud knock on his door came mid-wretch, and Dean wondered if this was what it felt like to have a vital organ ripped from your body.

"Hey, Dean, you in there?" Sam called, and Dean almost laughed, feeling more than a little hysterical.

Of course he was in there. What did Sam think? That he had escaped out the window?

It wasn't a half-bad idea, now that he thought of it, but-

"Yeah. Yeah, I'm here," he found himself responding, still bent nearly in two over the trashcan and struggling to suck in mouthfuls of air.

"Okay, good," Sam said, sounding relieved, and Dean's spine tingled violently.

"I just wanted to let you know that I'm going out tonight, alright?" he continued, sounding a bit muffled through the thick layer of wood. "I have a date that kind of just came together, seeing as how….well, whatever. It doesn't matter. So…you know, if I don't see you before then, don't wait up or anything."

Oh. There was the hardball.

Dean wanted to smash his head into the wall, but he threw up again instead, hoping against hope that the sound hadn't been loud enough to reach the hallway.

Blinking was complicated. Swallowing was impossible, and the space between Dean and his bedroom door suddenly seemed very big, like it was expanding, but it also seemed somehow simultaneously small…like it was shrinking…closing him in and pushing him…closer and closer to Sam.


	6. Chapter 6

To his credit, Dean really tried to leave Sam alone.

Short of handcuffing himself to his bed, he did everything humanly possible to stay in his room and just let Sam leave on this mystery date, something they surely both desperately needed to have happen in order to (hopefully) halt this terrible, explosive…dilemma in its tracks.

Hours passed, bearing the weight of the whole world, and Dean sat motionless, watching the play of sun and shadow on the ground deepen to distinction as early afternoon turned into late afternoon.

Sometime after that, dark clouds rolled in from the south, and thick raindrops started to fall like finger-taps on the roof, melodic and hypnotizing and filling Dean with a kind of foreboding that began to slip through him like heavy fog.

He wondered what Sam was getting himself into, anyway.

If he had planned this date to press Dean's buttons, he might not have been thinking like his usual, cautious, dependable self.

He could be getting ready right now to climb into the car of some stranger (for all intents and purposes) just to drive off to god-knows-where, and in the middle of what was shaping up to be a pretty hefty fall storm, no less.

Dean drew in a breath. His hands were shaking, though not from the cold, and he pulled himself out from under his sheets, his bare feet landing heavily onto the floor.

The living room was empty and dark, and Dean could hear soft music coming from behind Sam's closed bedroom door.

He paused, almost deciding to backtrack the way he had come and just hope that his brother had the common sense not to do something stupid that might get him into trouble, but his chest tightened painfully at the thought of something…anything…happening to Sammy that could have been avoided, and he forced his legs to keep moving forward.

Directly outside of Sam's room, he raised his arm to knock softly on the stained wood.

"Sam?" he called, feeling suddenly blanketed by a thick flurry of anticipation, "Can I, uh, come in for a sec?"

There was an awfully long moment of silence before Sam responded.

"Yeah, Dean…yeah, you can come in," he finally said in a quiet voice that was barely audible, and Dean's fingers trembled on the doorknob, slowly turning it and giving a little push.

The space between them seemed immense and daunting as Dean stepped in toward his Sam's neatly-made bed where Sam lay stretched out on top of his blankets holding an open book in his lap and pinning Dean with a quizzical stare.

Outside the window, what little light remained in the overcast sky was melting quickly into shadow, and there was a palpable stillness between the brothers that was only broken by Sam patting the mattress gently, a smile on his lips instead of the accusation Dean had been half-expecting.

Without really knowing what else to do, Dean accepted the invitation, sitting stiffly on the edge of the bed and clearing his throat uncomfortably.

"I don't want to take up too much of your time," he mumbled, acutely aware of his own loud heartbeat that seemed to be almost echoing against the walls. "I just…I worry about you, you know? You're…you're my kid brother, whether you want to be or not, and I don't know if I'm ready to send you off into the night with someone I've never even met before."

He glanced up to see Sam studying him like a chessboard before a first move, and Dean shivered, changing his mind about the chess metaphor as soon as he thought it.

None of this was as simple as a game of chess could be, all logic and planning and predictability. Not that Dean was a chess geek, or anything, but he had learned a thing or two from Bobby during the many long hours spent cooped up in small spaces waiting for leads.

No.

This…this was more like playing craps with Apollo.

"Dean," Sam said (and had Dean imagined him moving a fraction of an inch closer?), "Look, uh…there's something that I've been wanting to tell you, and I'm just going to say it, because there really isn't going to be a right time, and this doesn't have to be some huge thing like you're trying to make it, so...I…I know you were at my school, yesterday, okay? And I know you heard the song that I wrote about…us."

What?

Oh, fuck. What?

Dean's blood turned to ice and adrenaline in his veins, and his hands clenched up tightly into fists by his sides.

"You…what?" he managed to choke out, the very air around them now suddenly charged with a hot rush of fierce intensity.

"Dad called this morning when you were…out…and congratulated me, well, sort of congratulated me," Sam continued, sounding entirely too calm. "He said you came to see me preform."

Dean bristled like he had been doused with cold water and started to stand from the bed, unable to even respond, but Sam's massive hand found his shoulder and pressed, pushing him back down.

Irrationally-furious about the gesture for some reason, Dean hit Sam's hand away, hard, a five on a scale where three is normal, and jumped to his feet, stalking toward the window.

"Touch me again, and I'll kill you. I will," he growled, knowing that he was wildly overreacting but unable to stop the emotions that had boiled to the surface of his mind like lava. "You never even had a date, did you? You just…you just knew I'd come down here, and you-this…this is all your fault. You're sick. You're a freak. Don't think I don't know what you were doing this morning, what you…"

The words died in his throat, leaving a poisonous taste on the back of his tongue, and he wondered briefly if this could be just a very bad, very lucid, nightmare that he would wake up from at any moment.

Fuck it all.

He should have never left his own room.

Before he could make a beeline for the hallway, however, Sam jumped up and crowded in behind him, not quite touching him, just…blocking his escape, a giant wall of flannel and musky cologne looming between him and his path to the door.

"I'm warning you, Sammy," Dean hissed, his breath coming quick and shallow, "Don't do this right now. You need to let me leave, or I swear to God-"

Sam had grabbed his upper arm in a vice grip, and it was the last straw.

Making a sound reminiscent of a wounded animal, he had Sam crunched painfully against the wall in one fluid movement, his knee poised for a blow to the groin in case Sam tried to retaliate or muscle his way out of Dean's control.

Their faces were only an inch apart, and Dean felt completely panicked and unbalanced, feral in an entirely uncontrollable way, like he wanted to actually hurt his brother, to punch his face in until it wasn't so pretty anymore.

"You had to fucking push it," he gritted out through clenched teeth, not even swayed by the look of genuine fear in Sam's wide eyes. "You had to say it. You had to fucking sing a damn song about it for the whole goddamned world to hear instead of keeping it to ourselves like I thought we were perfectly fucking fine doing before. You fucking ruined it, Sammy. You just-"

Dean's mouth suddenly felt very dry, and Sam's lashes fluttered a little, his lips parting in surprise.

Shit.

Like we were...like we were…

Colored spots danced across Dean's vision as he realized what he had just done.

You see, keeping that secret from everyone, from himself most of all, had been a part of Dean for so long that it almost defined him, with wall after wall springing up from his center to keep what was locked inside hidden away from even his own private thoughts.

He hadn't consciously known it until this moment, but it had become the very core of his existence, protecting that secret, explaining it away into almost-oblivion over the past three years, never quite thinking it, keeping it at bay, always managing to really believe somehow that when he went out looking for men, he wasn't really out looking for boys like Sam, and now…and now…

His words still lingered in the air down low, close to the ground, mocking him, unable to be taken back…unable to be retracted, and he wanted to step on them, to squash them out, to just…make them disappear, but he couldn't.

It was too late.

And he was so angry, and Sam was so close, and Sam knew, and Dean knew, and so many things suddenly made sense, and…fuck…he wanted to rip his skin off or make Sam pay or…or just give in and not have to think about this right now, not have to feel like this, not have to-

"I know. I know," Sam was suddenly saying, reaching out to cup Dean's face tenderly in his hands. "I'm sorry. I'm so sorry, Dean, but I just, all this time, and I just couldn't-"

Sam was cut off mid-sentence as Dean crashed into him like a tidal wave, not even really aware of the fact that he was kissing his little brother until it was already happening…until he couldn't turn back.

He had always considered himself to be a strong man, but here, suddenly, with Sam laid out for him like this on a silver platter…so willing, so pliant, so…intoxicatingly-Sam…he realized that, somewhere down the line, he had become weak.

Maybe he always had been.

He had no strength left to resist this.

He just couldn't.

Not right now.

Not after…everything.

After a moment of shock, Sam's enormous hands had seemed to span his entire back, pulling him close with a frantic desperation like he was terrified that Dean would snap out of whatever psychological episode he was having and bolt for the door.

But Dean couldn't have stopped if his life had depended on it, because kissing Sam was like coming home, and the groan that escaped him was pure impulse, pure power, pure passion unlike anything he had ever felt or known he could feel.

It was like he had drifted away into another sphere of existence where he was suddenly without borders, all-encompassed, beyond definition, and his fingers tangled through Sam's hair, locking his head in place as Dean pushed his tongue against wet lips, demanding entrance.

Sam opened up so prettily, like the petals of a flower, his chest heaving almost violently as Dean claimed his mouth, tasting everywhere, memorizing every inch.

He kissed Sam fiercely, like the world's supply of oxygen lay between his brother's lips, and it could have been minutes or hours or an entire lifetime before he finally pulled back, his pupils blown to massive proportions and his skin deeply flushed.

Sam panted back at him, eyes closed, mouth open, and as Dean watched, he arched his neck back and to the right.

Dean didn't care whether or not it had been an invitation, because the next thing he knew, he was sucking on a soft piece of newly warmed skin at the junction of Sam's neck and shoulder.

Sam clawed at Dean's shoulders and moaned loudly, a wild, uninhibited sound, and Dean couldn't believe that his little brother sounded so provocative and so, well…dirty as he splayed himself against the wall like a damn wet dream come to life.

Jesus…Jesus…

Dean couldn't imagine a hotter sight than this version of Sam.

This wasn't cool, composed Sam.

No, this Sam was coming apart at the seams for him so quickly and completely that it made Dean's head spin.

This Sam was unabashedly offering himself up in a kind of desperate, needy, begging way that was making Dean's knees feel like jello and his cock ache painfully beneath the now too-tight fabric of his pants.

On some level, he knew how wrong it all was.

He did. He really did.

On some level, he understood with a great deal of clarity that he would not only loath himself for this, but that he damning himself, too…that he could never, never be forgiven for failing Sam in this way, for not being the responsible one, the voice of reason to combat Sam's mixed up, teenage feelings, but it was like his conscience had snapped completely in two, because he just couldn't seem to bring himself to care…not when Sam was licking his lips like that and mapping Dean's body everywhere with hungry, pressing fingers that just felt…so…damn…good.

He would deal with the inevitable repercussions when they became relevant.

He would go to hell a thousand times over to be able to keep touching Sammy like this for just a little while longer.

His Sammy...

His Sammy, who had slipped one of his hands between them and was now using the heel of his palm to, oh, God…oh, fuck…to rub against Dean's cock almost brutally, and shit, was this going too far? Was this-ahhhhh, dammit- should he stop this? Could he even bring himself to?

Dean was going to cum in his pants if Sam kept doing that.

Grabbing Sam's wrists and pinning them to the wall above his head, Dean thought that he was going to try to shift their focus back to making out, which was bad enough on its own, but his body betrayed him, his hips snapping forward instinctively and his hardness meeting Sam's own with a grinding pleasure that nearly ripped him apart inside.

Sam's eyes rolled back in his head, his legs nearly caving beneath him, and a litany of little mewling sounds spilled from his throat that had Dean's entire body shivering convulsively.

Fuck. Fuck.

He couldn't…he couldn't stop…

The next thrust was harder, more desperate, and Sam sucked in a trembling breath, rutting forward onto Dean shamelessly in return.

Christ, Dean was intoxicated by this, immediately addicted, and in the next moment, Sam threw his head back against the wall like a wild animal offering up its throat.

Dean couldn't think.

He had to drop one of Sam's hands to touch the skin there, because fuck…his brother's throat was the stuff that fantasies are born from.

Rubbing the blunt pad of his thumb down to Sam's Adam's apple before curling his fingers predatorily around the whole of Sam's neck, he couldn't stop himself from applying just a bit of experimental pressure timed perfectly with a particularly hungry push of his hips.

"Oh, fuck, Dean, don't-don't stop, please," Sam suddenly stammered, and Dean felt a hot stab of desire pierce through his gut, making his cock twitch and his heart hammer like a drum in his chest.

"Yeah. Fuck. Yeah," he groaned, leaning in until his lips were brushing up against Sam's ear, "You like that, huh, Sammy? How about this?"

He tightened his grip on Sam's neck and felt the wet spurt of precum as it leaked through the front of his brother's pants, triggering the same response from Dean's own cock and pulling another animalistic growl from somewhere deep inside of him.

"God, yes," Sam managed to scrape out, his voice as raw as sandpaper, and fuck if that wasn't the hottest thing Dean had ever heard in his life.

Shit, he was so close…too close…

As if on cue, Sam's breath stuttered, and his movements against Dean became jagged.

"Dean," he begged, the fingers of his free hand finding Dean's hip and digging into it hard enough to instantly leave a bruise, "Dean, I'm gonna…please…please can I…"

The rest of his plea was drowned out in a long moan, and Dean realized with a shock of white-hot arousal that Sam was asking for his permission to cum.

"Jesus, Sammy, Jesus," he hissed, rocking forward and feeling his own climax start to build inside of him, "Fuck, yes. I want you to cum for me. Show me. Do it, Sammy. Cum for me. Come on."

The last few words had barely left his lips before Sam was crying out his name and spasming wildly, Dean's own orgasm hitting him almost simultaneously with the force of a nuclear explosion as Sam humped against him, his face buried in the crook of Dean's shoulder.

They panted together as they rode out the waves of pleasure, pleasure unlike anything Dean could have ever even imagined existing before then, pleasure that was vicious and dazzling and all-consuming, but as the aftershocks slowly faded and Dean began to drift down again, the heaviness of what they had just done finally began to settle in like a weighted blanket, and Dean found himself stepping back a little, away from Sam.

There was a moment of uncomfortable silence where Dean just…stood there, still close enough to feel Sam breathing on him, but not close enough to be pressed against him, and it was a long moment…a really long moment.

Dean didn't want to have to relive it again for a while.

"Dean," Sam started, his voice throaty, but he trailed off, as if he couldn't seem to figure out which one of the hundreds of thousands of words he thought he knew was supposed to come after 'Dean.'

Dean had the overwhelming urge to touch Sam again, to drag them back to that place where implications and expectations were too distant to be relevant.

His hand moved forward a little, but he stopped it in midair.

Glancing up, he saw Sam staring, and he pulled his hand away again, back close against his side.

"Hey," Sam murmured softly, shifting his weight as if he couldn't quite decide whether or not to close the space between them. "Dean, it's…it's okay. It's really okay."

Dean shivered, jerking his gaze back to Sam's face, which was melting like snow before his eyes…softening into concern and something…else, too.

"Yeah, I know you believe that, Sammy," he finally said, seized by that sadness-laced guilt that he knew had been coming, "and it's not that I didn't…I…I just…I should never have done that. It was wrong of me to do that. I'm sorry. God, I'm so sorry. You're my little brother. I'm supposed to take care of you. You might think you know what you want, but you're too young to-"

"Don't do this, Dean."

Sam's expression had turned raw and bleak, and that was definitely Dean's heart in his throat.

Possibly his lungs, too.

"Just don't," Sam said again, crossing his arms defensively against his chest. "I might be younger than you, but I'm not little, and you know it. I haven't been a kid for a long time, and, I mean, come on! What part of the past two days hasn't been enough to convince you that I want this? I DO know what I want, Dean, and it's you, okay? It's always been you. It will always be you. I need you to understand that. There's nothing you could take from me that I wouldn't give you."

Dean hated himself for the warm glow of satisfaction that had curled through his stomach at Sam's words.

God, he wanted to have this.

He wanted it more than he had ever wanted anything.

He wanted it so badly that it was a physical, tangible pain aching deep in his center.

He sighed, staring down at the floor next to his feet and then back up at Sam.

"I'm exhausted, Sammy," he said quietly, straightening the wrinkles from his shirt.

His fingers were thankful for the task.

"You must be too, and I just think…I just think that we need to…sleep on this, alright? Can you just promise that you'll do that for me?"

Sam stood motionless for a long moment before finally giving Dean a small, curt nod that was barely perceptible.

Dean smiled, or he tried to, and forced himself to take a deep breath.

"Thank you. Really…thank you. We're gonna figure this out, okay? You just have to trust me on this."

Sam looked like he wanted to argue, but after opening his mouth and then closing it again, he squeezed past Dean and sat down on the edge of his mattress, his shoulders hunched.

"Yeah. Fine. I guess we'll…I'll just…see you in the morning. You should…get to bed."


	7. Chapter 7

That night, Dean dreampt that he could fly.

It wasn't one of those slow, sluggish flying dreams where you push down hard with your arms and sort of...lift yourself a few feet into the air.

In this dream, he could soar.

The first few steps were terrifying, like gravity had just given up on him, but then he ran right up through the sky, higher and higher until the clouds were just mist on his cheeks like sweet tears, like the most refreshing sweat in the world.

He flew over mountains and valleys and then back to the cabin, where he somehow just slipped right through the solid roof and down into Sam's room.

Sam was awake, just...watching him, naked on top of his blankets and...touching himself.

His eyes were like a challenge, drilling into Dean almost ferociously, and Dean woke feeling alternately uneasy and aroused, sweating and tangled in the sheets with a desire to lock himself in his own room until...well, until something.

Glancing over at the clock on his bedside table, he saw that it was not quite 6:30 AM, and he groaned, knowing that he wasn't going to be able to fall back asleep.

Fuck.

Last night...

Jesus, fuck.

His stomach clenched painfully as the memories of what he had done to...with...Sammy flooded back in vivid detail.

Little (okay maybe not so little, but still terribly young and his BROTHER) Sammy...

"God dammit," he muttered darkly to himself, throwing back his sheets and swinging his legs over the side of the bed. "You fucking idiot. Christ."

As much as it pained him, he was sure now that he wanted Sam.

Those feelings hadn't disappeared after a good night's sleep as he had dared to hope they might.

In fact, how he had been able to realistically deny it up until that moment in Sam's room was suddenly beyond him, and he groaned, holding his head up with uncertain hands.

He was intelligent enough to realize that there were still a lot of unknown factors in this...twisted...equation.

Why did he feel this way about his brother?

Why did Sam?

Did Sam even really want him in the same way, or was he just a confused teenager who had picked up on Dean's feelings and run with them?

And if they DID both...if they did...what had caused them to be so...well, fucked up?

What had happened to them?

A part of Dean wanted there to be some supernatural explanation.

On the one hand, if there was, it would have to be some pretty powerful mojo (and to what end?), but on the other hand, it would mean that none of this was their fault.

Too tired to dwell anymore on the heaviness of the issue, he rose to his feet, his vision blacking out for a moment at the sudden transition.

Shit.

He had to get Sam to school, soon.

He was still the adult, here, whether or not he deserved to be, and he had to start acting like it. No more late-night drinking. No more playing hooky. No more...

He swallowed down the lump in his throat, shuffling into his slippers and heading for the kitchen.

The least he could do was cook Sammy a decent breakfast. The kid needed-

He paused in the open doorway as his eyes landed on Sam, already up and flipping through a daunting textbook at the table while he forked a plate of scrambled eggs.

"Uh," he muttered stupidly, crossing his arms over his chest, "I see that you're...awake. And...eating."

Sam glanced up, looking almost like his old, smartass self, which simultaneously calmed and alarmed Dean.

"I'm glad to hear that your eyes are working," Sam said with a little shake of his head, refocusing on whatever he was reading and leaning back a little too casually in his chair. "I'm going to head to school early, today. I have a biology test, so I figured I'd get a little extra studying done in the library. I'll probably be home a little late, too. 4:00. Maybe 5:00. 5:30. Something like that."

Dean shifted his weight uncomfortably, not daring to make eye contact.

"Why?" he asked softly, terrified of the answer...terrified of not getting one...terrified of getting a lie.

Sam took a bite of eggs and chewed it slowly before answering.

"You know my friend Joey who gives me a ride home sometimes? He called me this morning. We're going to shoot some hoops at his place for a little while this afternoon. That okay?"

Dean knew it was a rhetorical question.

"Your friend called you at six in the morning?" Dean found himself saying, his voice dripping with doubt.

He hated himself a little for not being able to just let Sam do what he needed to do in the wake of...everything, but he couldn't seem to help it.

"And since when do you 'shoot hoops,' anyway?"

Sam cocked his head, pursing his lips slightly in Dean's direction.

"Okay," he said, his voice shaking a little in a way that made Dean's chest ache painfully, "You want to do it like this? Fine. Since when do I sing, right? Since when do I not get nervous in front of a crowd of people like I used to when I was thirteen? Since when do I...since when do I kiss my big brother? Or get off on him? Since when do I-"

"Fuck, Sammy. Stop it. Just stop it. You made your point. Jesus. You don't have to-"

Dean trailed off, his breath coming too-quickly and his muscles tensed.

"It's...fine. It's fine. Go...shoot hoops, or whatever, okay? It's...fine."

Sam wasn't smiling when he stood up from the kitchen table just a moment later to grab his backpack from the counter, and Dean wondered if a heart could actually shatter.

"I'll see you tonight," he called to Sam's back, but Sam didn't respond.

When the front door slammed shut, Dean dragged his feet forward on autopilot until he was in front of the couch, and with a desperate sigh, he fell onto it, horrified by the fact that he was crying...actually crying...big ugly tears falling down his cheeks in stark contrast to the sweet rain that had been there in his dream.

"You see that?" he thought to himself, hiding his face in the crook of his arm as though the furniture might notice and call Dad to tell him that his eldest son had become weak and pitiful. "You fucking ruined it. You ruined everything."

He wasn't the wishing type, but as he sat there in the dim morning light, he found himself wishing, to anyone or anything that might be listening, that things could just go back to the way they were before...to before he had decided to go to Sam's stupid school...to before he had heard Sam's stupid song...to before he had...temporarily lost his mind and fucking kissed Sam...let Sam touch him...said those things, all those awful things...

He just wanted to erase the vision of Sam looking at him like he just had, with anger and hurt in his eyes, because...what? Because he regretted everything? Because now that his thoughts had become a reality, he was able to see them for what they were? Wrong...disgusting, even?

Fuck.

He just...dammit...he just wanted his brother back.


	8. Chapter 8

It was nearly 9:30 PM when Dean finally heard the soft purr of an engine in the driveway.

Fuming, he stalked over to the living room window and yanked the curtain aside, peering out into the darkness.

The yellow glow of headlights illuminated Sam as he tumbled out of the passenger side, laughing wildly at something and clutching onto the top of the car door to steady himself.

An older boy, maybe a senior, Dean guessed, was now climbing out of the driver's seat and saying something to Sam with a sickening grin plastered across his face before puffing on the cigarette he had between two of his fingers.

Coming around the front of the car, he play-punched Sam on the shoulder before offering him the cigarette, and Sam snatched it from him, oddly wiggling his hips a little while he took a long, slow drag.

Wait a minute.

Dean squinted and leaned forward until his nose was practically pressed against the glass.

That was no cigarette...

It was a joint.

Dean would know.

He'd smoked his fair share of them when he was younger (younger than Sam, even), and still every once in a while these days if he was being honest.

But...SAM? Sam getting high? With some dirtbag who looked like bad decisions personified?

Dean felt a hot rush of intense anger begin to churn in his gut, enough to spot his vision red, and his hands tightened instinctively into fists by his sides.

Not if he fucking had anything to say about it.

Storming toward the front door, he wrenched it open, planting his hands on his hips and clearing his throat loudly.

Both boys turned to face him, Sam pursing his lips stubbornly and dirtbag-boy having the audacity to keep smiling stupidly like the damn cat that swallowed the canary.

Dean wanted to hit him.

Instead, he just sharpened his expression into a dangerous glare that he hoped properly conveyed his distaste.

The boy's smile faltered (much to Dean's satisfaction), and he glanced over at Sam for direction.

"Uh, this is my brother, Dean," Sam finally offered begrudgingly, the words "brother" and "Dean" coming out thickly and forced like they had been stuck to the roof of his mouth. "Dean, meet Joey. He's a Capricorn who likes candlelit dinners, cuddling, and things that blow up."

Joey snorted despite himself, giving Sam a little shove.

"Yeah. Pleasure to meet you," he choked out through a hitch of stifled laughter, shoving his hands into his pockets, and Dean's jaw tightened painfully.

"I wish I could say that the feeling is mutual," he grated out through clenched teeth, feeling much angrier than he knew he should. "Unfortunately, you're out here giving my little brother illegal drugs almost five hours after he was supposed to be home, so...no, it's not."

Joey cocked his head a little.

"Hey, wait a minute," he said, a different kind of smile creeping across his mouth, "Aren't you the guy who bought weed from my cousin Mikey a few weeks ago? You know, I was-"

"Shut it," Dean growled, his voice a cold warning as he finally remembered why Joey seemed so strangely familiar to him. "I'm an adult. Sam's not. Got it? So how about you get back in your piece-of-crap car and high tail it out of here before I decide to kick your ass, alright? And I hope you swiped that shit, because if I find out that Mikey's selling to kids, he's gonna regret it. You hear me?"

"Oh, so you think I'm just a kid, now, is that it?" Sam snapped, crossing his arms over his chest and fixing Dean with a very purposeful look that made Dean's knees feel weak and his throat feel dry. "Wow. You could have fooled me."

Dean suddenly felt irrationally nervous that Sam was going to blurt out what had happened between them, or an implication of what had happened, in front of Joey.

He was high, after all...

"Just...get inside, Sam," he pleaded, and Sam stubbornly held the stare for another long, awkward moment (during which Joey looked back and forth between them in confusion) before sighing in annoyance and finally breaking eye contact to look over at Joey and mumble something that sounded suspiciously like, "I'll call you tomorrow."

"Over my dead body," Dean thought furiously to himself as Joey nodded at Sam and climbed into his car, throwing Dean a disproving little frown over his shoulder that told Dean in no uncertain terms that he would most likely find himself on the black list of every dealer within a forty mile radius if Josh and Mikey could help it.

He couldn't bring himself to care.

Pushing past Dean angrily, Sam stormed into the cabin, making a beeline for his room, but Dean caught up with him in a few strides, a guttural sound coming up from deep in his throat as he reached out to grab Sam's shoulder.

"Hey! Stop right there," he hissed, tightening his fingers to a bruising grip, and, to his surprise, Sam did, coming to a sudden halt even though they both knew that he could have easily muscled out of Dean's grasp.

"What, Dean?" he said, his voice a low hum that seemed to vibrate through Dean's skin like an electrical current. "The pot? As if you weren't smoking the second you hit fourteen? Did you really have to fucking threaten Joey like that? Jesus. I have to go school here, you know. And most people already think I'm a freak." He brushed some hair away from his forehead. "Besides...I don't. Smoke. I mean, I did, but...I don't, not before this. And now probably never again at least in this town, thanks to you."

Dean's coiled muscles relaxed a bit at that, but the pot wasn't the issue right now. Not really. It was...it was-

"I don't care about that," he found himself saying, using his brief moment of leverage to slip around and plant his body as a barrier between Sam and his room. "I...I...are you pissed at me? I mean, don't answer that. I know you're pissed at me. I'm not an idiot." He paused for a second, forcing himself to take a deep breath, and then he hunched his shoulders in defeat, dropping his hand back down to his side and stepping out of Sam's way. "You...should be. I'm sorry. You should be. I get it. I do. I...took advantage of you...pushed you too far, and believe me, I feel like hell about it, okay? I know that you're probably...I don't know, Sam. I just-I don't know why I...I guess you have every right to hate me right now."

He was mortified by the fact that his eyes were burning again like they had that morning, and he quickly looked down at the ugly carpet, waiting for Sam to just walk right by him into his room, waiting to be left out here in the dark alone with his guilt where he belonged, but the seconds were ticking by, and Sam wasn't moving, so he raised his head, daring to look up.

Sam's eyes were boring holes into Dean, his face arranged into an expression that was...well...it wasn't anger. At least, Dean didn't think it was.

Although, he did wonder for one wild moment if Sam was going to reach out and slap him.

Dean would let him, of course.

"You know you're a dick, don't you?" Sam said instead, but the insult didn't resonate in his soft voice or reach his eyes, which Dean was surprised to see were suddenly smoldering darkly under heavy lids.

"Uh...I, uh..." Dean started, feeling confused and turned on and a little scared and even more uncomfortable than he already had been, "Yes. Yes? No, yes...I-I know."

And to think, he used to consider himself smooth.

He found himself desperately wishing that he could stop time for just long enough to prepare and memorize some intelligent, SAFE answers, because that line, the one they had soared across so spectacularly last night and the one Sam was pushing them closer and closer to now with each breath, suddenly felt like something that would open its jaws and snap them both up if they got too close.

This time, it was Sam's turn to grab Dean's shoulder, and Dean nearly jumped at the touch like a skittish colt as that tingling warmth from last night began to pool in his abdomen again like poison, like the best kind of cancer...

"If you seriously think that you took advantage of me last night, than you really are an idiot," Sam said quietly, raising his eyes with a kind of steely, smoldering intensity that sent up all kinds of red flags in Dean's mind. "You really think that's why I've been pissed at you? For finally giving me what I've wanted for the past three years? I mean, I know you think I'm a flighty teenager, but...come on."

Jesus Christ.

Had the temperature gone up by fifteen degrees or was Dean just on the verge of having a panic attack?

"Definitely panic attack," he thought wildly as his palms broke out in a clammy sweat.

"Dean," Sam continued, fingering the fabric of Dean's shirt, "I was pissed at you because I...I thought you were going to take it away again. Don't you get it? The way you were acting...I thought...I thought-"

The words died on his lips as he leaned in to press his mouth against Dean's, thankfully just for a moment, because Dean was now fairly certain that he was incapable of saying no to his little brother in situations like these.

When Sam pulled back, Dean closed his eyes and pressed his hand to his mouth as if he could force the sense-memory of the kiss down the back of his throat to a place where he wouldn't be able to feel it...to want more of it...

"Sammy," he finally said in a voice so calloused that he barely recognized it as his own, "God...I...we can't. Do this. We...you're my brother. Don't you get how...messed up that is?"

He thought that Sam might sulk or say something passive aggressive or even walk away, but his words just seemed to fuel the fire in Sam's eyes, and Dean was definitely going to have a panic attack now, because...fuck...all he wanted was to do was to dive under his own moral compass, to reach out and touch Sam everywhere, to map his skin, to pull those moans out of him again, those sweet, slutty, damning sounds...

He realized a moment too late that he was staring hungrily at Sam's mouth with a little smirk pulling at his lips, and apparently it was the only confirmation that Sam needed.

This time, when Sam moved back into Dean's personal space, Dean couldn't stop his body from betraying him, from lunging forward to meet his brother like a rabid animal, like the worst demonic-possession imaginable, but the rush of sickening dread only lasted for a fleeting moment, because...fuck...no matter how wrong it was, kissing Sam was still just as exhilarating and humanizing and, yes...infuriating...but powerful and a million other things that Dean would think about at some point.

There would be time for that later.

There would be time for discussion and dissection and denial, and feelings, and...God, feelings...

There would be time for that...after.

Growling, he pressed his tongue against Sam's teeth, giving in completely, and Sam opened up with a throaty purr that had Dean thrusting his denim-clad cock against his brother's hip far sooner than he should have.

Sam sighed shakily, pushing against Dean's chest until he stumbled backwards and into Sam's room.

There, about two feet from the foot of his double bed, Sam pulled away, putting a few inches between them, and Dean's heart began to sink until he saw Sam's hands tugging his own t-shirt up over his stomach, over his chest, over his head, where it stuck on a drag over his nose for a minute before pulling free and being tossed unceremoniously to the side.

Jesus.

Dean's eyes raked over Sam's skin, this experience somehow so deliciously and terribly different from the other thousand times he had seen Sam shirtless, but before he could even take it all in, process it, determine his next move, Sam's fingers were at his belt, and then, after he had loosened the strap just enough, at his fly.

Dean wondered for a horrifying moment if he might black out, but his eyelids felt glued open as Sam lowered his jeans and briefs in one slow movement, kicking them off to join his shirt before straightening up, completely naked...and hard...in front of Dean.

Fuck.

This was something...new...

Okay, so everything was something new, but this was...God...this was...dangerous.

"Sammy," he choked out, reaching down to palm his own hardness through the front of his jeans despite himself, "What are you...we can't..."

Someday, he would remaster the subtle art of using complete sentences.

Sammy moaned just a little, completely ignoring Dean's words, and fisted his cock at the base, stroking up its length and back down again, a spurt of precome leaking out deliciously from it's tip, and...oh, shit...Dean could...smell...him. He could smell Sam's arousal in the air around them like an intoxicating vapor settling in to even the deepest corners of Dean's brain and bringing with it that same fog from last night.

Dean suddenly understood that there were many different types of drowning.

This one was sweet and heady and musky and earthy and...so solidly Sam.

He'd never been one for the drowning metaphor, but he was ready to make it his religion, to worship at the altar of his brother's scent as it dragged him away from the air and down into the depths of pure, primal need.

Okay, maybe he wouldn't object to Sam occasionally smoking if this shamelessly-brazen and...fucking hot as hell display would be the end result.

His tongue felt as rough as sandpaper as he made a futile attempt to wet his lips, and he was almost ready to accept the fact that in maybe ten seconds (at best), he was no longer going to be able to give a shit anymore about lines and boundaries and-

Fuck.

Both brothers looked out toward the living room, where Metallica was jangling sharply from Dean's cell phone on the table like the sweetest and most infuriating wake-up call Dean could imagine.

It was Dad.

"Don't answer it," Sam whispered, desperately stepping forward and into Dean's space again. "Come on. Just let it ring. We'll call him back."

But being the good son, the good soldier, the beck-and-call boy of the family, was so hardwired into Dean, that he started moving toward the door on autopilot, wincing a little at Sam's frustrated hiss.

He half-considered smashing the phone down onto the wooden table when he had it in his hands, but instead, he flipped it open and raised it to his ear.

"Yeah?" he grunted, glancing over his shoulder to see that Sam had flopped stomach-down onto his bed and was glaring at him with a little pout that was just so damn...

Focus. Focus.

"Dean," John murmured quietly, like he was trying to keep from being heard by something on his end of the call, "I'm coming to pick you boys up. I'm five hours away. Get your stuff packed. We're leaving. I got made, and this thing knows about us, knows where you boys are, so lock all the doors and windows, check the salt, and get ready. You hear me?"

Dean gaped silently for a moment.

"What...what are you talking about?" he asked, his heart hammering in his chest. "I thought you and Bobby were after vamps?"

"I lied," John said gruffly, and the small click was all Dean needed to hear to know that the conversation was over.

"What's going on?" Sam called, now sitting up on his bed and looking at Dean with concern and poorly-concealed fear etched across his face. "What...is Dad okay?"

Dean met his eyes, trying to force himself to appear much calmer than he felt.

"Pack your bags, Sammy," he said, reaching out a hand to steady himself on the table. "We're leaving."


	9. Chapter 9

Hours went by in silence with nothing but the hum of an occasional car passing them in the night and the barely-audible drone of a man monotonously rattling off the news on the turned-down radio up front.

Sam and Dean sat in the back, Sam dosing with his face scrunched against the strap of his seatbelt and Dean staring out the window solemnly, his mouth set in a hard line and his head spinning with an onslaught of uncertainties that just seemed to keep on coming no matter how hard he tried to put them out of his mind.

They had both known better than to play the twenty questions game with Dad when he had arrived (overflowing at the brim with important seriousness) to pick them up.

It wouldn't have gotten them anywhere, anyway.

John had simply told them that they would know what they needed to know when they needed to know it, and they had understood that the discussion, if anyone could call it that, was closed.

Dean (and probably Sam, too) was intelligent enough to realize that they weren't dealing with any kind of run-of-the-mill monster tussle, and not because Dad had never been made in some common place hunt that went south.

No, there was a sadness in his eyes this time, a heaviness, a kind of exhaustion that ran deep…deeper than they had seen in years.

They weren't strangers to having to suddenly pack up and leave a place just because of a silly loose string that left them too exposed, but this wasn't one of those situations.

Despite outward appearances, Dean knew that their father was fiercely protective when it came to his sons (Sam especially, even though Sam had always assumed that Dean was the favorite child).

Dean knew he wasn't.

Dad was often harsh and unyielding with Sam to his face, and he certainly didn't know how to handle the teen angst that Dean had never really been in a position to outwardly display, but when Sam was looking the other way (even sometimes when he wasn't), Dean would catch Dad watching his youngest son with a proud tenderness reserved only for Sam.

He was the baby of the family, but it wasn't that.

He was also…different. Different from them…always had been.

He was better, and Dad knew it and Dean knew it and, deep down, they had both been terrified for a while now that he would leave them someday, that he would leave them with just their own shared brokenness and nothing to say to each other.

And now, God, now…everything with Sam was just so…so…impossible and inexplicable and paralyzing and terrifying in so many new ways.

Even if they weren't brothers, even if these…things…had happened in some parallel universe where they were strangers who met on the street or at the gym or wherever, Dean guessed that he would still feel like a black mark on something otherwise unstained…like something dirty that just shouldn't be paired with the enigma that was Sam.

He sighed, quiet exhaustion written into every line of his face.

The backseat of the impala on long, overnight drives had always been his brain's favorite place to sabotage him with everything he had put off thinking about since the LAST overnight drive, and this one was shaping up to be even more of a doozy than it already was.

He knew that he should be trying to get some rest while he had the chance, but all he wanted was for Dad to tell him that it was his turn to drive, because up front, with the wheel under his fingers and the accelerator under his foot, he liked to pretend that he was piloting an airplane and that the road was just a long runway that would eventually fade to a tiny stripe below him as he took off into the air.

Actual airplanes? No, thank you…but pretend ones? Pretend, impala-shaped ones? He would never admit it in a million years because of how juvenile it seemed even inside his own head, but it was secretly one of his favorite go-to happy places.

"Dean," John suddenly said, his quiet voice seeming almost cartoonishly-loud after so many hours of silence, "radio says a storm's rolling in. They're calling it a hurricane, so I think we'd better not risk being out on the road, at least not until the morning. I'm pulling off at the next exit with a lodging sign to find us somewhere to crash for the night. You hungry? I have some dinner up here if you want it. I forgot to ask you. Or did you guys eat earlier?"

They hadn't, and Dean's stomach gave a little growl as he remembered that food intake was an essential part of staying alive, but Dad's idea of "dinner" apparently meant an open take-out container of what looked like very old…greyish sludge with a few noodle-shaped lumps, so Dean decided against it.

"Nah," he said, shifting a little in his seat and glancing over at Sam, who still hadn't stirred from what was obviously a much-needed deep sleep (how Sam could pass out anywhere and in almost any situation had always been beyond him), "Thanks, though. I grabbed some…a piece of pizza before we left." He paused, grasping for something to say, because even awkward small talk was better than thinking right now. "How's, uh, how's Bobby? Is he meeting us somewhere?"

"Mmm," John replied vaguely, cranking up the radio a bit, and Dean sighed, although not loudly enough to be heard.

No one held up their end of the conversation quite like Dad.

"How was everything while I was gone?" John asked after a minute, plowing right over the Bobby question and flipping on his blinker as an exit sign came into view. "Sam cause you any headaches?"

Dean cleared his throat nervously.

He had hoped that Dad would bring up nearly anything on earth besides how he and Sam had been during his absence.

"Oh…no, no. No, not at all," he lied, his stomach feeling uncomfortably tight. "No, he was great. Got to school, did his homework, didn't complain. No, no, it was…he was fine."

Jesus Christ, that had been four too many no's to not be at least a little suspicious, but John just nodded, craning his neck to read a street name ahead of them at a deserted intersection.

"Well, that's surprising," he finally said in response, turning down a narrow, dusty road that Dean couldn't help feeling was unlikely to contain a lodging place of any kind unless John planned to commandeer the cave of some large, wild animal.

"So, no complaining or moping or locking himself in his room, huh?" Dad continued softly. "Man, that kid. So, what'd you do, roofie him?"

Dean fake-laughed way too loudly at that, earning himself a questioning squint from John in the mirror, and a sleepy little grunt from Sam as he startled awake at the noise.

"W'as going on?" he murmured blearily, rubbing his eyes. "Are we there, yet?"

Before Dean could respond, John nudged the breaks as if on cue, and both boys stared out the window at the bright red letters coming into view on their left flickering the words, "One-Trick Pony Inn."

"Yep," Dean said, raising an eyebrow, "Looks like."

One-Trick Pony Inn? What on earth did that even mean?

The phrase conjured up images of elderly prostitutes or mentally-delayed horses, and as they pulled into the nearly-empty parking lot, the peeling orange paint and general ambiance of a back-woods pay-by-the-hour establishment cemented Dean's suspicions that this wasn't going to be a stocked mini-fridge and cable TV kind of night.

Not that he was surprised.

Luxury rarely had a place in the comings and goings of hunters, unless it was somehow connected to a case.

He just hoped that there would be a viable heat source, clean-ish blankets, a bathroom that wasn't communal, and cockroaches that at least weren't fat and lazy enough to wander around in plain sight.

But…as he was nostalgically reminiscing about that time in Newport, Rhode Island with the socialite witch sisters, and about how much it had sucked to have to sleep in the cramped room of a crappy motel again after four days of pretending to be rich (thanks to the credit cards of the fictional Percival Fenderson), something struck him like a blow to the chest, and he choked on nothing, gripping his door handle and swallowing thickly.

How had this just occurred to him?

Crappy motel. One room. Sam with him in a double bed while Dad slept an arm's length away. Sam with his newfound…boldness…and those teenage hormones that Dean knew from experience always won out over common sense. Dean with his chronic case of can't-resist-Sammy-itis.

My God.

This entire thing (what…the rest of their lives, now?) had suddenly become a landmine of horrifying and unexplainable situations waiting to happen.

But, Sam was just yawning loudly, leaning back in his seat with his arms pushed behind his head in a long stretch, and he wasn't even looking at Dean…not even a sideways glance or a secret smile or one of those other Sam-ian stares that, these days (and kind of always, if he was being honest), lit up Dean's insides like a string of colored Christmas lights.

Dean began to wonder unpleasantly if he was really terrified about Sam making a move or…terrified that he wouldn't.

Christ, he was fucked in the head.

"Come on, boys," Dad said, swinging open his door. "Let's get inside."

Dad didn't even bother to change before falling into one of the small room's double beds and murmuring something that sounded like, "Nurrgmmn," before closing his eyes and drifting into a whiskey-induced knock-out.

Dean spent a lot of time bustling around silently doing what he hoped seemed like relevant things: unpacking and slipping into his pajama pants, brushing some invisible dirt off of the bedspread, checking his cellphone for messages, making sure that the windows were locked…things like that.

Sam had been in the bathroom brushing his teeth and washing his face, and when Dean walked by to make sure that the latch on the front door was secure, he glanced over to see Sam watching him with an unreadable expression on his face.

"You done making sure that we're on total lockdown?" he asked with an unmistakable smirk pulling at the corners of his mouth. "I'm pretty sure we're off the grid, out here."

Dean's palms had already started to sweat just hearing Sam talk, and he wiped them on his t-shirt, his breath suddenly and embarrassingly erratic.

"Yeah, well, better safe than sorry," he mumbled, his foot twitching like he was trying to walk away but couldn't figure out how. "You know, we don't really know what we're dealing with here, so…"

The rest of his sentence faded away into the tense air between them.

Sam continued to stare at him for a moment before clearing his throat and pushing past Dean toward the free bed.

"You want the wall side?" he asked casually, keeping his voice low so as not to wake Dad, and Dean stood rooted to the spot for a few long seconds before realizing that he couldn't just stand there avoiding whatever was about to happen (or not happen) all night.

"Uh, yeah, y-yeah, sure," he stuttered, feeling immensely thankful for the fact that the room was dark enough to conceal the blush that had started to creep across his face. "Yeah. Good. That's…good."

Sam smiled, tossing himself onto the bed and using his feet to kick his way under the covers.

"We'd better get some sleep," he said, covering a huge yawn with the back of his hand. "Come on. Get in."

Dean, being much more observant than many people assumed (especially about his brother), knew that Sam's nose crinkled up adorably every time he yawned, which it hadn't even a little just now, and…okay, yes…Sam fake-yawning could mean nothing at all, or…it COULD mean that he…wasn't really ready for sleep just yet.

Dean walked forward on autopilot to his side of the bed, where he briefly paused before hesitantly climbing in and settling into position facing the wall as close to the edge as physically possible without toppling off.

But, to his surprise, there was only silence and stillness from Sam…for what could have been five minutes or forty five minutes. Dean wasn't sure, because he was so hyper-focused on every tiny thing contained in each second that time as a whole was lost on him.

He knew that Sam wasn't asleep, because those deep, sleep breaths just weren't coming, and he definitely wasn't going to be able to fall asleep until Sam did, so, finally, he slowly and quietly turned to face his brother, not sure of what he was going to say or do…just certain that he would drive himself crazy if he didn't say or do _something_.

He shouldn't have been startled to see Sam fixing him with one of those intense stares that he had become all too familiar with these past few days, but he could feel his heart speed up at the sight of it and his breath catch in his throat with a little hitch that he hoped hadn't been noticeable.

"Trouble sleeping?" Sam murmured, his voice so low that it was barely audible, and Dean found himself nodding as a tight knot began to form somewhere in his lower abdomen.

Sam shifted closer in one quick movement, and quite suddenly, all of Dean's personal space was filled with his little brother…his little brother who was now flipping over onto his other side so that his back was pressed against Dean's chest and his ass was….oh, God.

Oh….God…

Fuck. Fuck. Fuck.

Dean was instantly rock-hard (maybe he already had been?).

He didn't really know or care…wasn't capable of either, because Jesus Christ, Sam's body was so warm and so soft and so hard all at the same time, and he just couldn't be held responsible for the little push forward of his hips that had Sam turning to bury his face in his pillow and push pack against Dean with a muffled little groan.

For the tiniest of moments, Dean stilled, trying to logic himself out of the whole thing, to remind himself how wrong it was, how…dangerous it was, but then Sam reached behind him to grab Dean by the wrist and whispered, "It's okay. Come on, it's okay. Just…stop overthinking this, Dean. You've gotta stop doing that. I need this. I know you do too. Just be quiet. Dad won't wake up. Come on."

Sam sounded so rough, so beautifully desperate, and Dean sighed, closing his eyes and letting Sam direct his hand…letting him draw it over and down the smoothness of his stomach that Dean's fingers wanted to memorize…down…and then down even further.

Sam was right.

Dean did need this…more than oxygen…or so it seemed right now, in this moment, with Sam pressed flush against him and…fuck….so…fucking…hard.

Dean mindlessly tightened his grip over the outline of Sam's erection through the thin fabric of his pajama pants, and he suddenly couldn't think, not even if he had wanted to…not a single thought…not a single thought except, "Touch, feel, more…more…"

And then Sam's hands were there, too, pushing, pulling, swatting Dean away, but before Dean even knew what was happening, his fingers were being pulled back down onto hot skin, and arousal stabbed through his chest like a knife as he realized that he was touching Sam…actually touching him.

God, there wasn't enough air in the room, and Dean distantly knew that he should feel cool. The heat in the damn place was barely functional, but it didn't matter.

It was like the sun was shining on his entire body, lighting him up, even burning him, but…the _best _kind of burn.

Sam was panting quietly and thrusting into Dean's palm, and Dean had never been so turned on his life as he threw a leg over Sam's hip, pulling them even closer together.

The fantasy didn't match the reality of having his brother's bare cock in his hand. Fuck…no, not even close.

This was so…_so _much better, and Dean knew in a heart-stopping instant that he was already addicted…that he was done trying to fight this, that he _couldn't _fight it.

Not anymore.

Not after this.

Using his free hand, he brushed the strong line of Sam's jaw with his thumb before cupping his cheek and forcing Sam's head up and off the pillow (maybe a little awkwardly for Sam, but Dean didn't care).

He had to see Sam's face…had to watch him come apart for this.

"That's it," he growled softly, stroking Sam hard and fast, almost brutally, in a way that was making Sam moan and arch nearly off the bed, and shit…they had to keep it down, because Dad had just stirred a little, grunting in his sleep.

His palm found Sam's mouth and covered it, which made Sam's cock twitch, and Jesus…Sam was turned on by it, by having Dean control him like that.

Dean's cock throbbed painfully, and Sam was whispering fragments of incoherent words behind Dean's palm, trying to keep his eyes from rolling back in his head.

Dean finally caught, "Off," and "Need to feel you," and he couldn't move quickly enough, his hand leaving Sam's mouth to fumble with his own pajama pants, finally managing to lower them enough to rut forward against Sam's ass.

Christ, that was good.

He pushed forward again, harder this time, and he could tell by the way Sam's muscles were clenching up that he was close to losing it.

Winding his fingers through Sam's hair, Dean gave an experimental tug, and Sam shivered, allowing his head to be pulled back until his throat was stretched tight and his forehead was resting against Dean's own neck.

So. Fucking. Hot.

Dean could tell that Sam wanted it rough…_needed _it like that, and fuck, if only they could…he would have little brother screaming as he came.

For now, though, he just sped up his strokes, thrusting against Sam to the same rhythm, and after no more than a minute, Sam's entire body was tensing so perfectly, so sweetly, and Dean felt his own orgasm swelling inside him like a wave.

"I need to see it. Do it. I want you to give me _everything_," he hissed into Sam's ear, and that was it.

For both of them.

Sam twitched violently in Dean's hand, shooting out strands of cum that reached nearly up to Dean's elbow, and Dean groaned deeply as he covered the outside of Sam's ass and the small of his back, grinding through the pulses of pleasure that were setting his nerves on fire.

"F-fuck. Fuck. Jesus…fuck," he babbled too loudly, and John snorted a little, rolling to face them in his sleep.

Christ.

Thank God for massive amounts of whiskey...

Sam shivered, relaxing against Dean, and Dean waited for the taste of bile to rise in the back of throat, for that sick feeling to wash over him like poisonous gas, but it didn't…

It…wasn't.

Instead, all he could think about in that moment was the little bit of shyness in the tilt of Sam's head and the fact that they were breathing together in time and that it all…that it all felt…right.

God help him, but it was true.

This suddenly felt right.

Logically, he knew that it wasn't, but it just…felt like it _could _be…if the whole rest of the world could just fade out around them…like…fuck, like in Sam's song.

"Dean?" Sam whispered, his voice so vulnerable that it made Dean's chest ache, and Dean found himself moving his hand up from Sam's softening cock to his stomach, where he just…lightly brushed his fingers across the skin there.

"Yeah?" he asked softly, Sam's musky, earthy smell making him feel lighthearted again. "What is it, Sammy?"

Sam took a shaky little breath, and Dean could feel his muscles fluttering wherever Dean's fingers landed.

"I…I just…I…love you," Sam finally said, half burying his face in the pillow, and Dean squeezed Sam tightly against him, wishing sadly that they could stay like this forever.

Just like this.

It was such a small thing to say, really…something they had said to each other so many times...

Such a small thing.

Three little, tiny, words…

I love you.

It wasn't anything more than that.

And it wasn't anything less than wonderful to Dean.


End file.
